Dr. Patrick Phillips, a family physician and front liner in health care in Ontario, talks with Dr. Naomi Wolf of Daily Clout on the devastating impacts of COVID-19 lockdown.
He firmly believes that the consequences outweigh the benefits and that they are consistently getting worst.
Watch the video below for the full interview.
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We would like to thank Mark Taliano for bringing this to our attention.
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The initial charges against those few who entered the Capitol during the Trump rally were “entering a restricted building without permission and engaging in disorderly conduct while inside.”This charge does not carry sufficient punishment for the kind of example the Establishment intends to make of Trump supporters.
Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sees a chance for his 15 minutes of fame.He announced in a press conference that he has built a team of national security attorneys to create sedition and conspiracy charges against Trump “rioters who stormed the Capitol.”
Note that excessive language accompanies excessive charges. Whether those who got into the Capitol were let in or broke in, there was no “storming,” and certainly no conspiracy to commit sedition.Sherwin says that he is “treating this just like a significant international counterterrorism or counterintelligence operation.”
Even the videos shown on anti-Trump news sites, such as The Hill, show the “insurrectionists” in the Capitol walking peacefully and keeping within the roped lane.How is this violent insurrection?There are videos making the rounds that show Trump supporters restraining a man who is trying to break a window in the Capitol.It is clear that the Trump supporters regard the person as an Antifa member.
In any demonstration there will be nutcases and provocateurs.To define a peaceful demonstration by the acts of a few is dishonest.Remember, the presstitutes repeatedly called the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots that looted and burned business areas of Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta and other cities “peaceful protests.”When the presstitutes had to acknowledge that there was violence, they blamed it on Trump supporters or white supremacists who had allegedly infiltrated the peaceful protests.
Infiltration does seem to have happened to Trump supporters at the Capitol. According to a report by a person present at the Capitol to film the event that was sent to Professor Mark Crispin Miller at New York University, agitators suddenly appeared with bull horns and provoked Trump supporters to rush up the steps at the back of the Capitol.
The relatively few who entered the Capitol apparently entered from the front.Some reports say they were allowed in. Here is the account of the cameraman that I reported on January 7:
“I was in Washington, D.C. today filming the Trump rally and related events. I also ran across your post concerning the Capitol demonstration tonight. Perhaps this short account will help you assess what others are saying in a small way.
“I was also at the Capitol before the crowd appeared setting-up my camera on a stone wall around the perimeter of the back of the capitol (the rear facing Constitution Avenue). Then I waited for President Trump’s speech to end and for supporters to walk-up Constitution Avenue to the Capitol. I was located at the precise location where supporters first rushed up the slope towards the back of the Capitol after casting aside a section of the first Capitol perimeter barrier. Supporters gathered roughly at the center of the back of the capitol, but a circle began to grow around the perimeter as the crowd grew larger. I had no sense that the growing crowd intended to rush the Capitol.
“After a large crowd emerged at the perimeter a man in perhaps his late 30’s or early 40’s showed-up, pacing quickly to his left then to his right before the crowd, and essentially began hurling insults at the crowd challenging their political wisdom. He excoriated the crowd for thinking that their attendance would be taken seriously by members of congress. (Hard to say that he was wrong about that, whoever he was). I cannot recall his precise words, but for a very short period he engaged in a shouting exchange with supporters, and suddenly supporters pushed aside the first barrier and rushed towards the back of the Capitol. Others on the northern edge of the perimeter followed suit. But the first rush was right at the center of the back of the Capitol. I followed the rush to the bottom of the Capitol back steps, and began filming again from atop an inner perimeter stone wall.
“The police, so it appeared, were a little surprised by the rush, and this gave supporters an opportunity to race up the steps. One or two men even made it as far as the steps leading up to the scaffolds on the south side of the Capitol before police arrested them. By this time, five or ten men had climbed to the top of the tall steel tower structure facing the Capitol. Then the police erected and lined-up behind a new barrier perimeter at the foot of the Capitol steps. Police at the top of the Capitol steps aimed rifles down on the crowd (perhaps rubber bullet rifles, I could not tell). The crowd began arguing with police and pressing hard against the new barrier. The police sprayed men pressing directly against the barrier with tear gas from time to time causing them to retreat. “Meanwhile, the men at the top of the tower began rallying the crowd to challenge the new barrier (over bull horns) by filling any gaps between the barrier and the stone wall that I was using as a filming vantage point. Another man worked the crowd with a bull horn immediately in front of me and also encouraged supporters to climb over the inner perimeter stone wall (my filming vantage point) and create a wall of pressure on the new barrier at the bottom of the Capitol back steps.
“After about 30 minutes to an hour I dropped to the bottom of the stone wall to reload my camera when suddenly the barrier gave way and police attempted to fortify it by blasting tear gas into the area between the stone wall and the barrier. I was hit by the gas myself and struggled back over the stone wall in order to breathe. The gas threw many crowd members into a panic. And I was nearly trampled as I struggled to lift my camera and heavy gear bag over the wall after two women began pulling desperately on the back of my coat to pull themselves up and over the moderately high wall in retreat.
“After the second perimeter barrier gave way, the men with the bull horns began working the crowd very hard to fill-up with Trump supporters the steps of the Capitol and the scaffolding on both sides of it. At this point one of the calls, which the men with bull horns repeated from time to time in order to encourage people to climb the Capitol steps was “this is not a rally; it’s the real thing.” Another frequent call was “its now or never.” After about a two hour effort peppered with bull horn calls of this nature the entire back of the Capitol was filled with Trump supporters and the entire face of the Capitol was covered with brilliant small and very large Trump banners, American flags, and various other types of flags and banners.
“Sometime after the rush on the back of the Capitol, people were apparently able to enter the Capitol itself through the front. But I was not witness to anything at the front or inside the Capitol.
“One clearly bona fide Trump supporter who had apparently entered the Capitol himself was telling others emotionally and angrily (including press representatives of some sort, even a foreign newsman) that he witnessed someone inside the Capitol encouraging violence whom he strongly suspected was not a legitimate Trump supporter (apparently on the basis that the man showed no signs at all of Trump support on his apparel). I did not pay that close attention to his claims (for example the precise claim of the violence encouraged) because, naturally, I had not yet read your post and it had not occurred to me that professional outsiders might play a role in instigating particular violent acts in order to discredit the event.
“I overheard one Trump supporter (who followed the rush on the Capitol himself) say aloud, “I brought many others to this rally, but we did not sign on for this” as he watched matters escalate.
“Still, from my seat, I would say that large numbers of very legitimate Trump supporters felt that it was their patriotic duty to occupy the Capitol in light of their unshakable beliefs that (1) the 2020 election was a fraud, (2) that the vast majority of the members of congress are corrupt and compromised, and (3) that the country is in the throes of what they consider a “communist” takeover (although many use the expression “communism” as a synonym for “totalitarianism”). They are also convinced that the virus narrative is a fraud and an essential part of an effort to undermine the Constitution –in particular the Bill of Rights. They have a very real fear that the country and the very conception of any culture of liberty is on the verge of an irreparable collapse. For most (if not a very large majority) rushing the Capitol was a desperate eleventh hour act of partiotism –even of the order of the revolution that created our nation. Some Trump supporters sang the Star Spangled Banner and other patriotic songs as others climbed the Capitol steps. They also demonstrated a measure of respect for the Capitol itself. I saw no attempt by anyone to deface the Capitol simply for the sake of defacing it.
“The incontrovertibly compromised press has called this event a riot. But from what I saw and heard this would indeed be a gross and intentionally misleading oversimplification at best. At least from the standpoint of supporters, if their Capitol event was a riot, then so was the Boston Tea Party. It also seems to me that some professional help (very aware of deep sentiments) might have come from somewhere to make sure that the party happened.”
It was “a riot and violent and an insurrection”, because that is what the Establishment wants it to be.Overstating what happened turns it into a weapon that can be used against Trump and his supporters as Acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin intends to do.
If Sherwin were to conduct a real investigation, he would probably find that the organized plan he is looking for was an Antifa plan or a plan of some Establishment group to use provocateurs to stampede rally attendees into some action that would discredit Trump and the rally. Of course, this is nothing that Sherwin wants to find.
The violent looters who rampaged through American cities have not been held accountable.Yet the US Justice Department is intent on framing people protesting what they believe was a stolen election as “insurrectionists” with a conspiracy of sedition.If Sherwin and the Establishment he serves had any judgment, they would not throw gasoline on a fire unless they want a bigger fire. It seems that a bigger fire is what they do want.
A bigger fire would help the new domestic terrorism bill that criminalizes dissent.Under this bill, those who challenge Establishment explanations could find themselves charged with terrorism. Law is what prosecutors establish it to be.What is terrorism becomes a subjective judgment and is whatever a prosecutor says it is.
There was no insurrection on January 6, which is puzzling in a way.
If tens of millions of Americans believe that their democracy is threatened by a stolen election and nothing was being done about it, who would be surprised if there was an insurrection? It seems to me that everyone but the Establishment and its minons would support such an insurrection.
To charge Trump supporters for something that did not happen, while not charging Antifa for what did happen, is the best way to split the population.Why does Michael Sherwin want to splint the American population?
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from Ted Eytan / Creative Commons
Only three US presidents were impeached — Andrew Johnson for sacking his war secretary Edwin Stanton, Bill Clinton for lying about sex, and Trump twice.
The first time was for winning an election he was supposed to lose and unorthodox actions in office.
The second coming Wednesday is largely to prevent him from serving in public office again, along with wanting him and supporters vilified for wrong reasons, ignoring justifiable ones.
Legitimate reasons existed to impeach, convict and remove most former US presidents from office — notably for crimes of war and against humanity on invented enemies.
This step was never taken because most elected and appointed US officials would share guilt in the above offenses and others.
Impeachment of US presidents is a politicized affair, for invented offenses, not real ones.
Charges against Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Trump twice were meritless, the same true for Richard Nixon’s forced resignation.
The Constitution’s Article II, Section 4 is supposed to be used as a check against abuses of power.
It empowers Congress to impeach, convict, and remove an unfit to hold office president or other elected or appointed officials.
It’s supposed to be for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The latter phrase is undefined and thus abused.
House members are empowered to impeach by a simple majority.
A Senate two-thirds majority is required to convict.
While unlikely, Trump may become the first sitting or former US president to be convicted by Senate members.
If before his term expires on January 20, he’d be forced from office.
If after his tenure ends, he could be barred from holding public office again by a separate vote.
He could be denied benefits afforded former US presidents under the 1958 Former Presidents Act.
He could lose them by removal pursuant to Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, according to the law — including his pension and Secret Service protection.
The law states that presidents “whose service in such office shall have terminated other than by” removal from office office are entitled to benefits.
According to Law Professor Josh Blackman, if convicted by a Senate super-majority after leaving office, benefits afforded former US presidents would not be affected, adding:
Under this scenario, he’d be “former president (who) cannot be removed from a position he no longer holds.”
Other legal experts believe it’s unlikely that Trump would lose Secret Service protection even if convicted and removed from office before January. 20.
In 2013, enacted US legislation authorized lifetime Secret Service protection for “former president(s)” without further elaboration.
Political Science Professor Cary Coglianese said if Trump is removed from office before January 20, “he would almost certainly not automatically lose the Secret Service protection which he would otherwise expect to receive…”
According to the NYT, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “told associates that he believes…Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he is pleased that (Dems) are moving to impeach him, believing that it will make it easier to purge him from the party, according to people familiar with his thinking.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy reportedly spoke to other GOP House members about whether they should call on Trump to resign before January 20.
At the same time, he expressed opposition to impeachment, but he, McConnell, and other GOP congressional leaders will not formally call on congressional Republicans to vote against impeachment, according to at least three unnamed party members.
According to The Hill:
“McConnell has made it clear to his allies that he’s done defending Trump and that the Senate GOP leader hasn’t spoken to the president since December,” adding:
He “had given a speech sharply breaking with Trump over the election — which the GOP leader tellingly said had not been that close — moments before the Capitol was overtaken by a mob.”
“He’s genuinely furious about what happened last week and what led up to it.”
“Senate Republican sources told The Hill that McConnell hasn’t revealed whether he would vote to convict Trump on an article of impeachment.”
“A majority of House Republicans are expected to oppose impeachment, and it’s also likely a majority of Senate Republicans would vote to acquit Trump in a trial.”
While it’s unlikely that McConnell, other congressional GOP leaders, and a required Senate super-majority would vote to convict Trump, what never happened before in US history is possible this time.
The Times, The Hill, and other US media reported that House impeachment vote will come Wednesday after Pence rejected using 25th Amendment authority to remove Trump from office pre-January 20.
Last week, he was quoted saying:
“I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our nation.”
The Washington Post reported similar information to the above, saying:
“The push for an unprecedented second impeachment of President Trump took a dramatic bipartisan turn Tuesday, as several senior House Republicans joined the (Dem) effort to remove Trump…”
Fox News, Reuters, and other media reported much the same information.
During December 2019 impeachment proceedings as well as pre-Capitol Hill violence, McConnell publicly opposed the process.
According to an unnamed GOP official, “(h)e’s not doing that this time,” adding:
“I don’t know if he ultimately supports it or he doesn’t support it.”
“Part of it probably depends on what case and what articles House Democrats ultimately place on their desk in the Senate.”
“He doesn’t see this as a political exercise. It may very well warrant that kind of action.”
Last week, I called what happened on Capitol Hill America’s Reichstag fire — what Trump had nothing to do with.
None of public remarks and tweets incited a violent insurrection “against the government of the United States.”
His post-Election 2020 rhetoric, including last week, has been constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment.
Claims otherwise by Dems, some
Republicans and establishment media were fabricated.
They seek lynch mob action against Trump, unjustifiably justified by invented charges, not legitimate ones.
If Trump is removed from office for using protected speech in addressing supporters, all Americans are potentially threatened with recrimination for truth-telling on major issues that diverges from the official narrative.
If constitutionally guaranteed free expression dies, all other major rights may go with it along with abolition of the rule of law.
That’s what the scourge of tyranny is all about.
That’s where things are heading in the US if the present trend continues uncontested by nonviolent resistance to preserve and protect what’s too precious to lose.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
According to the London Telegraph, UK vaccine passports “could be rolled out across the UK” if Boris Johnson’s “trial” run goes as planned.
Biometrics firm iProov and cybersecurity firm Mvine developed a digital passport for the trial in two so far unnamed designated areas.
While Britain’s science and research funding agency OK’d £75,000 for the project, Johnson’s health department said there was “no plan” to take this step.
Getting underway this month, it’ll continue for about two months.
Saying one thing, then doing another, happens time and again in the West and elsewhere.
Minister Michael Gove earlier said vaccine passports are “not the plan” going forward. He lied.
Johnson’s mass-vaxxing chief Nadhim Zahawi said we’re ‘looking at the technology.’ ”
In December, he said the following:
“I think mandating vaccinations is discriminatory and completely wrong…and I would urge businesses listening to this debate today not to even think about this,” adding:
“We have absolutely no plans for vaccine passporting.” Like Gove, he lied.
An anti-vaccine passport petition now circulating in Britain got hundreds of thousands of signatures, stating the following:
“I want the government to prevent any restrictions being placed on those who refuse to have any potential covid-19 vaccine.”
“This includes restrictions on travel, social events, such as concerts or sports. No restrictions whatsoever.”
Ignored by Zahawi, days earlier he about-faced, saying that he expects bars, cinemas, restaurants and sports stadiums to demand proof of vaxxing against covid (aka renamed seasonal flu) for access to these, perhaps other public areas and travel.
Are mandated vaccine passports coming to Britain ahead?
Will health apartheid come to the US and other Western countries?
Denmark announced development of “immunity passports” to include “tracking and (Big Brother) surveillance.”
Ontario, Canada authorities are exploring their use to include restrictions on travel and access to public venues if unvaxxed.
Israel’s Netanyahu regime said vaxxed individuals will get “green passports,” affording them access to public places.
Other Western ruling authorities indicated that vaccine passports are coming for ‘life to get back to normal (sic).”
All vaccines are hazardous to health, experimental covid ones most hazardous of all.
Preserving and protecting health demands shunning them.
Mandating immunity passports for access to public places will harden totalitarian rule in nations taking this unacceptable step.
Is that’s what’s coming later this year, a diabolical brave new world?
Will free movement no longer be allowed without digital proof of vaxxing with what risks serious harm to human health?
According to a Johnson regime health department statement:
It’s “everyone’s responsibility to do the right thing for their own health (sic), and for the benefit of the wider community (sic),” adding:
Johnson hardliners “will carefully consider all options to improve vaccination rates, should that be necessary.”
Reportedly, UK airlines and hotels support vaccine passports for use of their services.
According to a statement by unnamed UK officials:
“Those who refuse to get the (covid) jab would likely be refused entry to venues.”
Is the same coming for UK workplaces and schools?
Will a mandatory digital ID system come next for Big Brother mass-surveillance in Western and other societies?
All of the above may be part of what diabolical Great Reset planners intend in pursuing establishment of ruler-serf societies worldwide.
Will daily lives and routines no longer be possible without vaccine passports?
Will what was inconceivable not long ago become reality ahead?
Will what’s unfolding go beyond what Orwell and Huxley imagined?
Will dystopian harshness in the West and elsewhere be the new abnormal in the coming months?
If mass resistance doesn’t challenge what may be coming, fundamental freedoms no longer will exist.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
2021 began with a historic decision in the Middle East as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt decided to end their diplomatic and economic embargo against Qatar. The decision to end the embargo, that has been in place since 2017, was formalized during an extraordinary meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a group that brings together Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.
Despite having only 1.9 million inhabitants, Qatar stands out internationally for its hydrocarbon production and unorthodox diplomacy. Qatar is an absolute monarchy commanded by the House of Thani and has the world’s third largest natural gas reserves, but its foreign diplomacy antagonizes countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Although it is only a small country of less than two million people, it is not an isolated country that can be ignored, mostly thanks to its immense wealth, in addition to hosting major events such as the upcoming World Cup, and dominating the Arab media landscape through services like Al-Jazeera and other print, digital and broadcast media.
Saudi Arabia and its allies highlighted that Qatar uses Al-Jazeera as an instrument for international propaganda. Qatar’s communication policy through Al-Jazeera consists of a form of public diplomacy, which is a strategic factor in shaping opinion in the Arab world.
However, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt decided to break diplomatic relations with Qatar and closed their borders to the country. Their justification was Qatar maintained close relations with Iran and supports terrorist and extremist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, among other things.
In fact, Qatar maintains diverse contacts with rival organizations and countries, which is not always viewed favorably by its neighbors. It is for this reason that Qatar is the seat for Afghan peace negotiations, but also a source of funding for groups that defend the Palestinian cause. In addition, Qatar pays the ransom price set by terrorist organizations that kidnap foreigners and locals alike in Syria.
The proposal to lift the embargo against Qatar came from the monocratic decision of two key people: the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and the de facto ruler of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed.
After three and a half years of embargo, Qatar has not changed its posture – it maintains relations with Iran, Al-Jazeera is still being broadcasted globally, and it did not suffer any significant economic damage. Qatar was able to transport products by air via countries like Iran and Turkey, which eventually cancelled the effects of the air blockade. The land embargo was not able to generate a supply crisis either despite Qatar’s only land border being with Saudi Arabia.
The tools used by decisionmakers in the Qatari capital of Doha to circumvent the embargo proved to be efficient. Lifting the embargo effectively means that these countries failed to achieve their goals and are trying to get out of a situation that they themselves created. But why then did Saudi Arabia and its allies decide to normalize relations with Doha if neither party was badly affected?
Rapprochement with Qatar could be a way of attracting the country to form an alliance of Arab states in the Persian Gulf to contain Iranian influence. In his speech to allies at the GCC, the Saudi monarch blamed Iran for instability in the region.
“There is an urgent need to join our efforts to promote our region and confront the challenges that surround us, especially that represented by Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” said bin Salman during the meeting.
One of the main frustrations that Arab states have against Qatar is its uncompromising cooperation with Iran. Therefore, the lifting of the embargo may be an attempt to include Qatar in the group of Arab countries that have normalized relations with Israel. The measure aims to attract Qatar and, indirectly, Kuwait, to normalize relations with Israel.
Last year, Bahrain and the UAE established diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, abandoning the historic position of refusing to recognize the Jewish state in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. However, Qatar is already beginning to improve its relationship with Israel as a way to increase its influence in U.S. political circles.
The eventual establishment of diplomatic relations between Doha and Tel Aviv would be harmful for militant and political groups in Palestine since Qatar is the richest Arab country to maintain support for them. On the other hand, the privileged relationship that Qatar has with Palestinian groups like Hamas may actually be of interest to Israel. Qatar can cooperate simultaneously with Israel and Palestine, placing itself as an intermediary between the Hamas terrorist organization and Tel Aviv, just as it does between the Taliban and Afghan government. Currently, the only channel Israel has with Hamas is through Egypt, and it may serve Israeli interests to establish another line of contact with the group through Qatar.
The expectation, therefore, is that Qatar will maintain diverse diplomatic contacts, serving as a relevant regional mediator. Although few terms of the GCC-Qatar treaty have been made public, there is no evidence that Doha has made any or major concessions to countries that imposed the embargo.
Qatar puts itself in the place of the winner by affably receiving Saudi Arabia’s invitation to rejoin the GCC. The lesson that Qatar leaves is that diversified foreign policy is one that does not surrender or make concessions under pressure, while maintaining relations without preconditions or going against third parties.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
Contingent on World Bank aid to be given to poorer countries in the wake of coronavirus lockdowns, agrifood conglomerates will aim to further expand their influence. These firms have been integral to the consolidation of a global food regime that has emerged in recent decades based on chemical- and proprietary-input-dependent agriculture which incurs massive externalised social, environmental and health costs.
Reliance on commodity monocropping for global markets, long supply chains and dependency on external inputs for cultivation make the food system vulnerable to shocks, whether resulting from public health scares, oil price spikes (the global food system is fossil-fuel dependent) or conflict and war. An increasing number of countries are recognising the need to respond by becoming more food self-sufficient, preferably by securing control over their own food and reducing supply chain lengths.
The various coronavirus lockdowns have disrupted many transport and production activities, exposing the weaknesses of the food system. If the current situation tells us anything, it is that structural solutions are needed to transform food production, not further strengthen the status quo.
Agroecology
In 2014, UN special rapporteur Olivier De Schutter’s report concluded that by applying agroecological principles to democratically controlled agricultural systems we can help to put an end to food crises and poverty challenges. He argued that agroecological approaches could tackle food needs in critical regions and could double food production in 10 years.
The 2009 IAASTD peer-reviewed report, produced by 400 scientists and supported by 60 countries, recommended agroecology to maintain and increase the productivity of global agriculture. And the recent UN FAO High Level Panel of Experts concluded that agroecology provides greatly improved food security and nutritional, gender, environmental and yield benefits compared to industrial agriculture.
Agroecology is based on traditional knowledge and modern agricultural research, utilising elements of contemporary ecology, soil biology and the biological control of pests. This system employs sound ecological management by using on-farm solutions to manage pests and disease without the use of agrochemicals and corporate seeds. It outperforms the prevailing industrial food system in terms of diversity of food output, nutrition per acre, soil health, water table stability and climate resilience.
Academic Raj Patel outlines some of the basic practices of agroecology by saying that nitrogen-fixing beans are grown instead of using inorganic fertilizer, flowers are used to attract beneficial insects to manage pests and weeds are crowded out with more intensive planting. The result is a sophisticated polyculture: many crops are produced simultaneously, instead of just one.
By creating securely paid labour-intensive agricultural work in both richer and poorer countries, it can address the interrelated links between labour offshoring by rich countries and the removal of rural populations elsewhere who end up in sweat shops to carry out offshored jobs: the two-pronged process of neoliberal, globalised capitalism that has hollowed out the economies of the US and UK and which is displacing existing indigenous food production systems and undermining the rural infrastructure in places like India.
Agroecology is based on the principle of food sovereignty, which encompasses the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food and the right of people to define their own food and agriculture systems. ‘Culturally appropriate’ is a nod to the foods people have traditionally produced and eaten as well as the associated socially embedded practices which underpin community and a sense of communality. But it goes beyond that.
Modern food system
People have a deep microbiological connection to soils, food processing practices and fermentation processes which affect the gut microbiome – up to six pounds of bacteria, viruses and microbes akin to human soil. And as with actual soil, the microbiome can become degraded according to what we ingest (or fail to ingest). Many nerve endings from major organs are located in the gut and the microbiome effectively nourishes them. There is ongoing research taking place into how the microbiome is disrupted by the modern globalised food production/processing system and the chemical bombardment it is subjected to.
Capitalism colonises (and degrades) all aspects of life but is colonising the very essence of our being – even on a physiological level. With their agrochemicals and food additives, powerful companies are attacking this ‘soil’ and with it the human body. As soon as agri-food corporations undermined the capacity for eating locally grown, traditionally processed food, cultivated in healthy soils and began imposing long-line supply chains and food subjected to chemical-laden cultivation and processing activities, we not only lost our cultural connections to food production and the seasons, but we also lost our deep-rooted microbiological connection with our localities. Corporate chemicals and seeds and global food chains dominated by the likes of Monsanto (now Bayer), Nestle and Cargill took over.
Aside from affecting the functioning of major organs, neurotransmitters in the gut affect our moods and thinking. Alterations in the composition of the gut microbiome have been implicated in a wide range of neurological and psychiatric conditions, including autism, chronic pain, depression and Parkinson’s Disease. In addition, increasing levels of obesity are associated with low bacterial richness in the gut. Indeed, it has been noted that tribes not exposed to the modern food system have richer microbiomes.
To ensure genuine food security and good health, humanity must transition to a notion of food sovereignty based on optimal self-sufficiency, agroecological principles and local ownership and stewardship of common resources – land, water, soil, seeds, etc.
However, what we are seeing is a trend towards genetically engineered and biosynthetic lab-based food controlled by corporations. The billionaire class who are pushing this agenda think they can own nature and all humans and can control both. As part of an economic, cultural and social ‘great reset’, they seek to impose their cold dystopian vision that wants to eradicate thousands of years of culture, tradition and farming practices virtually overnight.
Consider that many of the ancient rituals and celebrations of our forebears were built around stories and myths that helped them come to terms with some of the most basic issues of existence, from death to rebirth and fertility. These culturally embedded beliefs and practices served to sanctify their practical relationship with nature and its role in sustaining human life.
As agriculture became key to human survival, the planting and harvesting of crops and other seasonal activities associated with food production were central to these customs. Freyfaxi marks the beginning of the harvest in Norse paganism, for example, while Lammas or Lughnasadh is the celebration of the first harvest/grain harvest in Paganism.
Humans celebrated nature and the life it gave birth to. Ancient beliefs and rituals were imbued with hope and renewal and people had a necessary and immediate relationship with the sun, seeds, animals, wind, fire, soil and rain and the changing seasons that nourished and brought life. In addition to our physiological connection, our cultural and social relationships with agrarian production and associated deities had a sound practical base.
We need look no further than India to appreciate the important relationship between culture, agriculture and ecology, not least the vital importance of the monsoon and seasonal planting and harvesting. Rural-based beliefs and rituals steeped in nature persist, even among urban Indians. These are bound to traditional knowledge systems where livelihoods, the seasons, food, cooking, processing, seed exchange, healthcare and the passing on of knowledge are all inter-related and form the essence of cultural diversity within India itself.
Although the industrial age resulted in a diminution of the connection between food and the natural environment as people moved to cities, traditional ‘food cultures’ – the practices, attitudes and beliefs surrounding the production, distribution and consumption of food – still thrive and highlight our ongoing connection to agriculture and nature.
If we go back to the 1950s, it is interesting to note Union Carbide’s corporate narrative based on a series of images that depicted the company as a ‘hand of god’ coming out of the sky to ‘solve’ some of the issues facing humanity. One of the most famous images is of the hand pouring the firm’s agrochemicals on Indian soils as if traditional farming practices were somehow ‘backward’.
Despite well-publicised claims to the contrary, this chemical-driven approach did not lead to higher food production according to the paper New Histories of the Green Revolution written by Prof Glenn Stone. However, it has had long-term devastating ecological, social and economic consequences as we saw in Vandana Shiva’s book ‘The Violence of the Green Revolution’ and Bhaskar Save’s now famous and highly insightful open letter to Indian officials.
In the book Food and Cultural Studies’ (Bob Ashley et al), we see how, some years ago, a Coca Cola TV ad campaign sold its product to an audience which associated modernity with a sugary drink and depicted ancient Aboriginal beliefs as harmful, ignorant and outdated. Coke and not rain became the giver of life to the parched. This type of ideology forms part of a wider strategy to discredit traditional cultures and portray them as being deficient and in need of assistance from ‘god-like’ corporations.
Post-COVID plunder
What we are seeing in 2020, is an acceleration of such processes. In terms of food and agriculture, traditional farming in places like India will be under increasing pressure from the big-tech giants and agribusiness to open up to lab-grown food, GMOs, genetically engineered soil microbes, data harvesting tools and drones and other ‘disruptive’ technologies.
This vision includes farmerless farms being manned by driverless machines, monitored by drones and doused with chemicals to produce commodity crops from patented GM seeds for industrial ‘biomatter’ to be processed and constituted into something resembling food. What will happen to the farmers?
Post-COVID, the World Bank talks about helping countries get back on track in return for structural reforms. Are tens of millions of smallholder farmers to be enticed from their land in return for individual debt relief and universal basic income? The displacement of these farmers and the subsequent destruction of rural communities and their cultures was something the Gates Foundation once called for and cynically termed “land mobility”.
Cut through the euphemisms and it is clear that Bill Gates – and the other incredibly rich individuals behind the great reset with their ‘white saviour’ mindset – is an old-fashioned colonialist who supports the time-honoured dispossessive strategies of imperialism, whether this involves mining, appropriating and commodifying farmer knowledge, accelerating the transfer of research and seeds to corporations or facilitating intellectual property piracy and seed monopolies created through IP laws and seed regulations.
In India – still an agrarian-based society – will the land of these already (prior to COVID) heavily indebted farmers then be handed over to the tech giants, the financial institutions and global agribusiness to churn out their high-tech industrial sludge?
With the link completely severed between food production, nature and culturally embedded beliefs that give meaning and expression to life, we will be left with the individual human who exists on lab-based food, who is reliant on income from the state and who is stripped of satisfying productive endeavour and genuine self-fulfilment.
Technocratic meddling has already destroyed or undermined cultural diversity, meaningful social connections and agrarian ecosystems that draw on centuries of traditional knowledge and are increasingly recognised as valid approaches to secure food security, as outlined for example in the 2017 article Food Security and Traditional Knowledge in India in the Journal of South Asian Studies.
Such a pity that prominent commentators like George Monbiot, who writes for the UK’s Guardian newspaper, seems fully on board with this ‘great reset’. In his 2020 article ‘Lab-grown food will soon destroy farming – and save the planet’, he sees farmerless farms and ‘fake’ food produced in giant industrial factories from microbes as a good thing.
“The notion that high-tech ‘farm free’ lab food will save the planet is simply a continuation of the same mechanistic mindset which has brought us to where we are today – the idea that we are separate from and outside of nature… it is the basis of industrial agriculture which has destroyed the planet, farmers livelihoods and our health.”
She adds:
“Turning ‘water into food’ is an echo from the times of the second world war, when it was claimed that fossil-fuel-based chemical fertilisers would produce ‘Bread from Air’. Instead we have dead zones in the ocean, greenhouse gases – including nitrous oxide which is 300 times more damaging to the environment than CO2 – and desertified soils and land. We are part of nature, not separate from and outside of nature. Food is what connects us to the earth, its diverse beings, including the forests around us — through the trillions of microorganisms that are in our gut microbiome and which keep our bodies healthy, both inside and out.”
As an environmentalist, Monbiot supports lab-based food because he only sees a distorted method of industrial farming; he is blind to agroecological methods which do not have the disastrous environmental consequences of chemical-dependent industrial agriculture. Monbiot’s ‘solution’ is to replace one model of corporate controlled farming with another, thereby robbing us of our connection to the land, to each other and making us wholly dependent on profiteering, unscrupulous interests that have no time for concepts like food democracy or food sovereignty.
Moreover, certain lab-engineered ‘food’ will require biomatter in the form of commodity crops. This in itself raises issues related to the colonisation of land in faraway countries and the implications for food security there. We may look no further to see the adverse health, social and environmental impacts of pesticide-dependent GMO seed monocropping in Argentina as it produces soy for the global market, not least for animal feed in Europe.
Instead of pandering to the needs of corporations, prominent commentators would do better by getting behind initiatives like the anti-imperialist Declaration of the International Forum for Agroecology, produced by Nyeleni in 2015. It argues for building grass-root local food systems that create new rural-urban links, based on genuine agroecological food production. It adds that agroecology requires local producers and communities to challenge and transform structures of power in society, not least by putting the control of seeds, biodiversity, land and territories, waters, knowledge, culture and the commons in the hands of those who feed the world.
It would mean that what ends up in our food and how it is grown is determined by the public good and not powerful private interests driven by patents, control and commercial gain and the compulsion to subjugate farmers, consumers and entire regions to their global supply chains and questionable products (whether unhealthy food or proprietary pesticides and seeds). For consumers, the public good includes more diverse diets leading to better nutrition and enhanced immunity when faced with any future pandemic.
Across the world, decentralised, regional and local community-owned food systems based on short(er) food supply chains that can cope with future shocks are now needed more than ever. But there are major obstacles given the power of agrifood concerns whose business models are based on industrial farming and global chains with all the devastating consequences this entails.
Following the devastation caused by coronavirus-related lockdowns, World Bank Group President David Malpass has stated that poorer countries will be ‘helped’ to get back on their feet – on the condition that further neoliberal reforms and the undermining of public services are implemented and become further embedded.
He says that countries will need to implement structural reforms to help shorten the time to recovery and create confidence that the recovery can be strong:
“For those countries that have excessive regulations, subsidies, licensing regimes, trade protection or litigiousness as obstacles, we will work with them to foster markets, choice and faster growth prospects during the recovery.”
For agriculture, this means the further opening of markets to benefit the richer nations. What journalists like George Monbiot fail to acknowledge is that emerging technology in agriculture (AI drones, gene-edited crops, synthetic food, etc) is first and foremost an instrument of corporate power. Indeed, agriculture has for a long time been central to US foreign policy to boost the bottom line of its agribusiness interests and their control over the global food chain.
“It is by agriculture and control of the food supply that American diplomacy has been able to control most of the Third World. The World Bank’s geopolitical lending strategy has been to turn countries into food deficit areas by convincing them to grow cash crops – plantation export crops – not to feed themselves with their own food crops.”
It is naïve to suggest that in the brave new world of farmerless farms and lab-based food, things would be different. In the face of economic crisis and stagnation at home, exacerbated by COVID lockdowns and restrictions, whether through new technologies or older Green Revolution methods, Western agricapital will seek to further entrench its position across the globe.
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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.
Nitrous oxide from agriculture and other sources is accumulating in the atmosphere so quickly it puts Earth on track for a dangerous 3℃ warming this century, our new research has found.
Each year, more than 100 million tonnes of nitrogen are spread on crops in the form of synthetic fertiliser. The same amount again is put onto pastures and crops in manure from livestock.
This colossal amount of nitrogen makes crops and pastures grow more abundantly. But it also releases nitrous oxide (N₂O), a greenhouse gas.
Agriculture is the main cause of the increasing concentrations, and is likely to remain so this century. N₂O emissions from agriculture and industry can be reduced, and we must take urgent action if we hope to stabilise Earth’s climate.
2000 years of atmospheric nitrous oxide concentrations. Observations taken from ice cores and atmosphere. Source: BoM/CSIRO/AAD.
Where does nitrous oxide come from?
We found that N₂O emissions from natural sources, such as soils and oceans, have not changed much in recent decades. But emissions from human sources have increased rapidly.
Atmospheric concentrations of N₂O reached 331 parts per billion in 2018, 22% above levels around the year 1750, before the industrial era began.
Agriculture caused almost 70% of global N₂O emissions in the decade to 2016. The emissions are created through microbial processes in soils. The use of nitrogen in synthetic fertilisers and manure is a key driver of this process.
Other human sources of N₂O include the chemical industry, waste water and the burning of fossil fuels.
N₂O is destroyed in the upper atmosphere, primarily by solar radiation. But humans are emitting N₂O faster than it’s being destroyed, so it’s accumulating in the atmosphere.
N₂O both depletes the ozone layer and contributes to global warming.
As a greenhouse gas, N₂O has 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and stays in the atmosphere for an average 116 years. It’s the third most important greenhouse gas after CO₂ (which lasts up to thousands of years in the atmosphere) and methane.
N₂O depletes the ozone layer when it interacts with ozone gas in the stratosphere. Other ozone-depleting substances, such as chemicals containing chlorine and bromine, have been banned under the United Nations Montreal Protocol. N₂O is not banned under the protocol, although the Paris Agreement seeks to reduce its concentrations.
Reducing fertiliser use on farms is critical to reducing N₂O emissions.Shutterstock
What we found
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has developed scenarios for the future, outlining the different pathways the world could take on emission reduction by 2100. Our research found N₂O concentrations have begun to exceed the levels predicted across all scenarios.
The current concentrations are in line with a global average temperature increase of well above 3℃ this century.
We found that global human-caused N₂O emissions have grown by 30% over the past three decades. Emissions from agriculture mostly came from synthetic nitrogen fertiliser used in East Asia, Europe, South Asia and North America. Emissions from Africa and South America are dominated by emissions from livestock manure.
In terms of emissions growth, the highest contributions come from emerging economies – particularly Brazil, China, and India – where crop production and livestock numbers have increased rapidly in recent decades.
N₂O emissions from Australia have been stable over the past decade. Increase in emissions from agriculture and waste have been offset by a decline in emissions from industry and fossil fuels.
Regional changes in N₂O emissions from human activities, from 1980 to 2016, in million tons of nitrogen per year. Data from: Tian et al. 2020, Nature. Source: Global Carbon Project & International Nitrogen Initiative.
What to do?
N₂O must be part of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and there is already work being done. Since the late 1990s, for example, efforts to reduce emissions from the chemicals industry have been successful, particularly in the production of nylon, in the United States, Europe and Japan.
Reducing emissions from agriculture is more difficult – food production must be maintained and there is no simple alternative to nitrogen fertilisers. But some options do exist.
In Europe over the past two decades, N₂O emissions have fallen as agricultural productivity increased. This was largely achieved through government policies to reduce pollution in waterways and drinking water, which encouraged more efficient fertiliser use.
Other ways to reduce N₂O emissions from agriculture include:
better management of animal manure
applying fertiliser in a way that better matches the needs of growing plants
alternating crops to include those that produce their own nitrogen, such as legumes, to reduce the need for fertiliser
enhanced efficiency fertilisers that lower N₂O production.
Global nitrous oxide budget 2007-16. Adopted from Tian et al. 2020. Nature. Source: Global Carbon Project & International Nitrogen Initiative.
Getting to net-zero emissions
Stopping the overuse of nitrogen fertilisers is not just good for the climate. It can also reduce water pollution and increase farm profitability.
Even with the right agricultural policies and actions, synthetic and manure fertilisers will be needed. To bring the sector to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, as needed to stabilise the climate, new technologies will be required.
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Authors:
Pep Canadell, Chief research scientist, Climate Science Centre, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere; and Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO
Eric Davidson, Director, Appalachian Laboratory and Professor, University of Maryland, Baltimore
Glen Peters,Research Director, Center for International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo
Hanqin Tian, Director, International Center for Climate and Global Change Research, Auburn University
Michael Prather, Distinguished Professor of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine
Calendar year 2020 was an extreme and abnormal year, in so many ways. The global coronavirus pandemic altered people’s lives around the world, as did extreme weather and climate events. Let’s review the year’s top 10 such events.
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1. Hottest year on record?
The official rankings will not be released until January 14, but according to NASA, Earth’s average surface temperature in 2020 is likely to tie with 2016 for the hottest year on record, making the last seven years the seven hottest on record.
Remarkably, the record warmth of 2020 occurred during a minimum in the solar cycle and in a year in which a moderate La Niña event formed. Surface cooling of the tropical Pacific during La Niña events typically causes a slight global cool-down, as does the minimum of the solar cycle, making it difficult to set all-time heat records. The record heat of 2020 in these circumstances is a demonstration of how powerful human causes of global warming have become.
Figure 1. The eye of category 5 Hurricane Iota on November 16, the strongest hurricane of the 2020 season, as seen by the Sentinel-2 satellite. (Image credit: Pierre Markuse)
2. The wild 2020 Atlantic hurricane season
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season produced an extraordinary 30 named storms (highest on record), 13 hurricanes (second-highest on record), and six major hurricanes (tied for second-highest on record): more than double the activity of an average season (12 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes).
The 2020 season was notable not only for its record number of named storms (after breaking into the Greek alphabet by the ridiculously early date of September 18), but also for its record number of rapidly intensifying storms (10), record number of landfalling U.S. named storms (12), and record number of landfalling U.S. hurricanes (six). Every single mile of the mainland U.S. coast from Texas to Maine was under a watch or warning related to tropical cyclones at some point in 2020. U.S. hurricane damage exceeded $37 billion, according to insurance broker Aon, the eighth-highest annual total on record.
Two catastrophic category 4 hurricanes hit Central America in November: Hurricane Iota, the latest category 5 storm ever recorded in the Atlantic, and Hurricane Eta, the deadliest tropical cyclone worldwide in 2020, with at least 274 people listed as dead or missing. At least seven hurricanes from 2020 will be worthy of having their names retired: Iota, Eta, Zeta, Delta, Sally, Laura, and Isaias – although there is still no official mechanism for retiring storm names from the Greek alphabet. The record for most names retired in one Atlantic season was set in 2005, when five hurricanes had their names retired.
Figure 2. Global energy-related emissions (top) and annual change (bottom) in gigatons of carbon dioxide, with projected 2020 levels highlighted in red. Other major events are indicated to a give a sense of scale. (Image credit: Carbon Brief, using data from the Global Energy Review)
3. Record-high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels despite record emissions drop
As a result of restrictions taken to curb the coronavirus pandemic, carbon emissions to the atmosphere in 2020 declined by 9 to 10% in the U.S. and 6 to 7% globally, although some of those reductions were offset by carbon released by wildfires. Those are the largest annual carbon emissions declines since World War II and far more than the 1% global and 6% U.S. emissions drops brought about by the 2008 Great Recession.
Nevertheless, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose by 2.6 parts per million from 2019 to 414 ppm in 2020. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere will not decline until human emissions reach net zero. Moreover, as coronavirus restrictions were lifted during 2020, global carbon pollution nearly rebounded to pre-COVID levels.
Figure 3. A wildfire in the Sakha Republic, Arctic Circle, Siberia, Russia creates smoke and pyrocumulus clouds on July 9, 2020. A record heat wave in Siberia during June led to the Arctic’s first-ever 38.0°C (100.4°F) temperature and helped drive the Arctic’s worst wildfire season on record. (Image credit: Copernicus Sentinel data via Pierre Markuse)
4. An apocalyptic wildfire season
The year 2020 brought record levels of fire activity to the U.S. and Arctic, but unusually low levels in Canada and tropical Africa, resulting in a below-average year for global fire activity, according to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. According to Insurance broker Aon, the global direct cost of wildfires in 2020 was $17 billion, ranking as the fifth-costliest wildfire year, behind 2017, 2018, 2015 (major Indonesian fires), and 2010 (major Russian fires).
The Australian bushfire season ending in early 2020 (due to seasons in the Southern hemisphere being the reverse of those in the Northern hemisphere) was also a record-breaker, having burned more than 46 million acres and destroyed more than 3,500 homes.
The National Interagency Fire Center reported that U.S. wildfires burned 10.25 million acres as of December 18, 2020, the highest yearly total since accurate records began in 1983. The previous record was 10.13 million acres in 2015. The hottest August through October period in Western U.S. history, combined with severe drought and a once-in-a-generation offshore wind event, conspired to bring about an apocalyptic western U.S. wildfire season. Total U.S. wildfire damages in 2020 were $16.5 billion, said Aon, ranking as its third-costliest year on record, behind 2017 ($24 billion) and 2018 ($22 billion). Wildfires caused at least 43 direct U.S. deaths. But the indirect death toll among people 65 and older in California alone during the period August 1-September 10 – due to wildfire smoke inhalation – was likely between 1,200 and 3,000, researchers at Stanford University reported in a September 11 study. The 4.2 million acres burned in California in 2020 was more than double the previous record set in 2018.
5. Super Typhoon Goni: Strongest landfalling tropical cyclone on record
Super Typhoon Goni made landfall near Bato, Catanduanes Island, Philippines, on November 1 with sustained winds of 195 mph and a central pressure of 884 mb, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, or JTWC. Goni was the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone in world recorded history, using one-minute average wind speeds from the National Hurricane Center for the Atlantic/Northeast Pacific and one-minute average winds from JTWC for the rest of the planet’s ocean basins.
Goni killed 31 people, damaged or destroyed 250,000 homes, and caused over $1 billion in damage, tying it with Typhoon Bopha in 2012 and Typhoon Vamco in 2020 as the Philippines’ second-most expensive typhoon on record, adjusted for inflation. Only Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 ($11.1 billion) was more damaging.
Ominously, seven of the 10 strongest landfalls in recorded history have occurred since 2006.
Figure 4. The temperature measurement enclosure at the Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center in Death Valley, California, on August 17, 2020, when the site recorded a maximum temperature of 127 degrees Fahrenheit (52.8°C). The previous day, the site reported a preliminary world record for hottest reliably measured temperature on record: 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4°C). (Image credit: Climatologist William Reid, who is holding up the hand-held temperature sensor)
6. Hottest reliably measured temperature: 130°F in Death Valley
Death Valley, California, hit an astonishing 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4°C) at 3:41 p.m. PDT, August 16, 2020, at the Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center. This reading was rounded to 130 degrees Fahrenheit in the daily summary from NOAA. According to weather records experts Christopher Burt, who wrote the comprehensive weather records book “Extreme Weather,” and Maximiliano Herrera, who tweets under the Twitter handle, Extreme Temperatures Around the World, the observation may be the hottest reliably recorded temperature in world history, breaking the 129.2 degrees Fahrenheit readings at Death Valley in 2013 and in Kuwait in 2016.
The World Meteorological Organization is conducting a review of the site’s observing equipment. “If the observation passes an investigation (instrument calibration, etc.) then, yes, this is a new reliably measured global extreme heat record,” Burt wrote by email. However, the official world record will remain a 134 degrees Fahrenheit measurement taken at Death Valley on July 10, 1913, a record widely viewed as bogus.
7. Most expensive 2020 disaster: Flooding in China causes $32 billion in damage
Seasonal monsoon flooding in China in June through September killed 278 people, damaged or destroyed 1.4 million homes and businesses, and did $32 billion in damage, according to insurance broker Aon. EM-DAT, the international disaster database, ranks that total as the third-most expensive non-U.S. weather disaster since accurate records began in 1990 (adjusted for inflation), behind 1998 flooding in China ($48 billion) and 2011 flooding in Thailand ($47 billion).
In a September 2020 study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, “Each 0.5°C of Warming Increases Annual Flood Losses in China by More than US$60 Billion,” researchers found that annual average flood losses in China during the period 1984-2018 were $19.2 billion (2015 dollars), which was 0.5% of China’s GDP. Annual flood losses increased to $25.3 billion annually during the period 2006-2018. The study authors predicted that each additional 0.5 degrees Celsius of global warming will increase China flood losses by $60 billion per year.
Figure 5. Arctic sea ice age near the time of the annual minimum in 1985 (left) and in 2020 (right). There is very little old, thick ice left in the Arctic, increasing the chances of a late-summer ice-free Arctic by the 2030s. (Image credit: Zack Labe)
8. Near-record low Arctic sea ice
Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum on September 15, 2020, bottoming out at its second-lowest extent and volume ever recorded, behind 2012. A new study suggests that the 2012 record hasn’t been broken despite ever-rising temperatures because the rapidly-warming Arctic has altered the jet stream, leading to cloudy summer Arctic conditions that have acted to temporarily preserve some of the sea ice. However, long-term global warming will inevitably win out, and scientists expect the Arctic to be ice-free in the summer beginning sometime between 2030 and 2050. Overall, three-quarters of the volume of summer sea ice in the Arctic has melted over the past 40 years.
The Northern Sea Route along the northern coast of Russia finally froze shut on November 3, after being open a record 112 days, and 2020 was the busiest shipping season ever for natural gas tankers in the Arctic, according to Bloomberg.
9. U.S. withdrawal from Paris Climate Accord and election of Joe Biden
The U.S. officially withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement the day after the November 3, 2020 election. But Joe Biden, who won that presidential election, has announced his intent to immediately rejoin the Paris agreement on the day of his inauguration: January 20, 2021.
President-elect Biden considers tackling climate change a top priority and has proposed a plan to invest $2 trillion over four years in deploying climate solutions. He has assembled a team tasked with carrying out that plan, including several climate-focused cabinet member-nominees and the first national adviser on climate change.
10. A near-record number of global billion-dollar weather disasters
Through the end of November, 44 billion-dollar weather disasters had occurred globally in 2020, according to the November 2020 Catastrophe Report from insurance broker Aon. The record in the Aon database is 47, set in 2010, and 2020 could challenge that record when the final tallies are announced on January 25, 2021.
The United States suffered 25 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2020, surpassing Aon’s previous U.S. record of 20 in 2017. The record number of U.S. disasters led to the American Red Cross’s providing record levels of disaster sheltering in 2020, according to a December 2 article by E&E News.
An October 13 report by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction found a “staggering” rise in climate-related disasters, including extreme weather events: those nearly doubled, from 3,656 in 1980-1999 to 6,681 in 2000-2019. The number of major floods more than doubled, from 1,389 to 3,254, and the incidence of destructive storms increased from 1,457 to 2,034.
The report blamed human-caused climate change as a significant factor in the increased disasters. It warned: “It is baffling that we willingly and knowingly continue to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people.” The U.N. report authors called attention to “industrial nations that are failing miserably on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to levels commensurate with the desired goal of keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius as set out in the Paris Agreement.”
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The new data confirms that primary forest loss in the 2010s was nearly 30 percent higher than the 2000s despite global efforts to curb deforestation by creating mechanisms for producing tropical commodities more sustainably, helping indigenous peoples secure land rights, expanding protected areas, and improving forest monitoring. Average annual primary forest loss in the last five years (4.3 million ha from 2015-2019) of the study period was nearly 50 percent higher than the first five years (2.9 million ha 2010-2014). That rise however may not fully reflect the extent of the damage at the end of the decade: forest loss from fires that burned in the Amazon and Indonesia during the latter part of 2019 may not show up in the data until the following year due to cloud cover.
This post’s primary function is to provide some charts highlighting some of the key primary forest trends in the new data set. For additional context on tropical deforestation, trends in rainforests over the past 20 years, and the new UMD/WRI data presented on Global Forest Watch, please see:
Deforestation in Indonesian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
Global tree cover loss
Global tree cover loss, which encompasses primary forest loss as well as clearing of secondary forests and cyclical harvesting of tree plantations, rose: from an average of 17.1 million hectares a year in the 2000s to 23.1 million in the 2010s. This increase reflects both deforestation in natural forests and activity within an expanding area of plantations, the bulk of which are in Asia, Europe, and North America.
Annual tree cover loss between 2001-19. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
Total tree cover loss between 2001 and 2019. Note: tree cover loss does not represent deforestation since it also includes cyclical harvesting of existing forestry plantations. It also excludes forest cover gain through natural recovery, afforestation, and replanting plantations. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.Annual tree cover loss between 2001-19. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
Trends in primary forests at the country level
Primary tropical forests are among the world’s most carbon-dense and wildlife-rich terrestrial ecosystems. Scientists therefore see their destruction as disproportionately damaging in terms of biodiversity loss and carbon emissions. In some years, emissions from destruction and degradation of tropical forests and peatlands may exceed the combined emissions of the entire transportation sector.
Tropical primary forest loss was greatest in the three countries with the largest extent of tropical forests: Brazil (24.5 million hectares), Indonesia (9.5 million ha), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (4.8 million hectares). Paraguay and Cambodia lost more than 28% of their primary forests since 2002.
Highest extent of primary forest cover between 2001 and 2019. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
Highest percentage of primary forest cover loss between 2001 and 2019. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
Trends in tropical forests at regional levels
Deforestation is trending upward in the world’s two largest rainforests, the Amazonand the Congo. More details on deforestation in specific Amazon countries can be found here.
Annual tree cover loss and primary forest loss in the Amazon rainforest between 2002-19. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
Tree cover and primary forest cover in the Amazon rainforest by country. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
The state of tropical forest cover in 2020. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
Trends in primary forests at sub-national levels
Ten sub-national jurisdictions accounted for nearly half of tropical primary forest loss between 2002 and 2019. The top four slots were states in Brazil: Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Amazonas, while provinces in Indonesia occupied four of the other places among the top ten.
On a percentage basis, among states, provinces, and departments with more than 35,000 hectares of tree cover in 2010, no jurisdiction lost more primary forest than Riau, Indonesia where large swathes of rainforest and peat forest have been converted to acacia and oil palm plantations over the past twenty years. Five provinces in Cambodia lost more than 10% of their primary forests.
Largest share of primary forest loss between 2002-19 in provinces and states with more than 5,000 hectares of such loss during the period. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
Largest extent of primary forest loss between 2002-19 in provinces and states. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
Share of primary forest loss in the tropics between 2002-19 by subnational jurisdiction. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.
The 2010s opened as a moment of optimism for tropical forests. Widely available satellite imagery via platforms like Google Earth brought new levels of accountability which, for the first time, meant the world couldn’t use ignorance as an excuse for not addressing the destruction of tropical forests. Deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest — the Brazilian Amazon — was in the midst of a historic plunge, while governments around the world were pledging billions of dollars in new money toward a mechanism to compensate tropical countries for protecting their forests. Several countries closed out the decade with important new conservation initiatives, while activists, empowered with a new set of tools, pushed the private sector to begin adopting a new type of sustainability commitment: the zero deforestation policy for commodity production and sourcing. Some of the largest consumer-facing companies adopted these forest-friendly policies with near-term implementation targets. The world looked like it was on track to significantly reduce tropical deforestation by 2020.By the end of the 2019, however, it was clear that progress on protecting tropical forests stalled in the 2010s. On the climate front, a decade of science has mostly confirmed what we already knew 10 years ago: Tropical forests are deeply threatened by the current pace of climate change. Combined with ongoing deforestation, degradation, and fragmentation, the outlook for some of the planet’s largest forests, from the Amazon to Indonesia, is increasingly bleak.The 2010s were also marked by mixed progress for tropical forest conservation. Advances in remote sensing were undercut by backsliding on corporate and government commitments to protect forests. Gains in new protected areas were partially offset by a trend toward protected area downgrading, downsizing and degazettement (PADDD) in countries from Brazil to Indonesia. Efforts to recognize the value of healthy and productive natural forests were confronted with the challenging realities of implementation, public indifference and the punishing economics of rising demand for food, fiber and fuel in the context of unaccounted costs of environmental externalities. Political leaders in several important tropical forest countries turned a blind eye to — or in some cases even actively encouraged — threats against environmental defenders and the free press, contributing to hundreds of murders and assassinations of activists, indigenous leaders and journalists.The 2010s closed with rising deforestation and increased incidence of fire in tropical forests. According to the U.N., in 2015, global forest cover fell below four billion hectares (10 billion acres) for the first time in modern human history.
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Featured image: IBAMA operation against illegal loggers in the Brazilian Amazon, courtesy of IBAMA.
Australia’s Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, said little in the statement from her department, which was a good thing, as it might have been dangerously useful. The finding of a UK court on whether Julian Assange would be extradited to the United States was made “on the grounds of his mental health and consequent suicide risk.” She does not care to mention the actual details of the case, the fact that the decision by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, while blocking the extradition, was nastily focused against journalism.
Payne insists on objective distance from the proceedings. “Australia is not a party to the case and will continue to respect the ongoing legal process, including the UK justice system’s consideration of applications for release, or any appeals.” Superficial regard for due process is thereby preserved and acknowledged.
What follows from the statement is a cover excusing the feeble efforts by Australian governments over the years of all stripes to assist Assange in his monumental battle against the US imperium and the proxy torments inflicted by Britain and Sweden. “We have made 19 offers of consular assistance to Mr Assange since 2019 that have gone unanswered. We will continue to offer consular support.”
Such a statement sticks to the steady line that Australian officials have always been there, always ready and eager to assist a citizen beleaguered, persecuted and haunted by the agencies and instruments of an ally. But the position is sacredly supine: do not rock the alliance with either the US or the UK; do not disturb the good offices of Washington or raise hackles in Downing Street.
In the past, Australia, with a few dubious exceptions, has shown scant regard to shielding citizens in a monumental pickle, especially those accused of grave crimes of a political nature. The Howard government’s lamentable response to David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, both accused of terrorism offences by the US in the misnamed global war on terror, has been documented. Hicks found himself facing that most dubious of legal experiments with cheery Australian approval: US military commissions established by the administration of George W. Bush.
When the US Supreme Court struck down the legality of the commissions in Hamdan v Rumsfeld (2006) for violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949, then Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer remained unmoved. “Prior to that the military commission process had been upheld by other courts including the US court of appeals, so it had been, until it went to the Supreme Court, a process that was upheld by American civil courts.”
Hardly the sharpest legal analysis ever offered, and one leaving Australian officials flatfooted in their treatment of an Australian citizen. “Our advice has been, as had the American Government’s advice had been, that it was lawful,” explained a less than contrite Prime Minister John Howard. “Now, the court has said no, well, we accept that – you get advice and you act on it.”
The case with Assange is no less dire. When President Barack Obama’s Vice President and soon to be US President Joe Biden was asked about the release of US State Department cables by WikiLeaks in 2010, the response was unequivocal: Assange was a species of “hi-tech terrorist”. Republican Rep. Peter King of New York insisted that he be charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 (corks must have popped at the release of the Department of Justice indictment doing just that) and WikiLeaks designated a terrorist organisation. Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton merrily floated the idea of using a drone against Assange that same year, though claimed not to recall doing so in 2016. “It would have been a joke, if it had been said, but I don’t recall that.”
Rather than defend an Australian national against the positively homicidal and kidnapping disposition of US politicians and agencies, Canberra has been generally reticent, hiding behind the fiction of due process. In some cases, Australian officials have gone so far as to level their own accusations against the Australian national, hinting that Assange might deserve trial and incarceration. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard stumbled into a trap of her own making in asserting in 2012 that it was an “illegal act” to leak documents to WikiLeaks. “It would not happen, information would not be on WikiLeaks, if there had not been an illegal act undertaken.”
Unfortunately for Gillard, she had not reckoned with the corrective assessment of opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis. Gillard, he said reproachfully, had been “clumsy” in her use of language. “As far as I can see he (Mr Assange) hasn’t broken any Australian law.” Shadow Foreign Minister Julie Bishop similarly pointed out that Gillard was unable to identify “any Australian law that Mr Assange has broken. Nor has she apologised for pre-judging him in that way and making that prejudicial statement.”
In 2012, when he was Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr also waffled in accusation, casting a spear at Assange for releasing “secrets… for the sake of being released without inherent justification.” In doing so, he threw in his lot with those who considered the release by WikiLeaks to be nothing like the Pentagon Papers, that jewel of exposure released by US Defence Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg. The WikiLeaks exposures were “not like Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers which revealed huge American deception, huge deception by the American government of the American public.”
This was horrendously off the mark, not least given the assessment by Ellsberg himself since 2010 and at Assange’s extradition trial. In December 2010, Ellsberg released a co-signed statement remarking that, “Every attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.” In giving his testimony as a defence witness for Assange in September 2020, he further argued that his “own actions in relation to the Pentagon Papers and the consequences of their publication have been acknowledged to have performed such a radical change of understanding. I view the WikiLeaks publications of 2010 and 2011 to be of comparable importance.”
Carr was also irritated by those nuisance accusations that Assange had not received sufficient consular assistance. In his diary entry of June 2, 2012, he notes being, “Fed up with complaints from [Assange’s] family suggesting he hasn’t been supported by Australia and the opposition spokesperson saying the same thing”. Disingenuous to a fault, Carr made the adventurous suggestionat a press conference that the WikiLeaks publisher “has had more consular support in a comparable time than any other Australian. Strictly speaking, I don’t know whether this is the case.”
Carr has since undergone the sort of transformation that the Czech dissident playwright Václav Havel found inherent in politics. The very nature of the practice – one can hardly call it a discipline – produces a divorce between truth and the human being. When it is convenient, these might meet, human might and solidarity marshalled behind verity. Carr, for a time, found it inconvenient to consider the truth of Assange’s situation. Now, he has become Assange’s late-to-the party standard-bearer and defender. His extradition to the US, argues the converted Carr, “would set an ugly precedent.”
In the aftermath of the court decision, Carr suggested on Twitter that Australia was “entitled to tell Trump in his last days that Assange is one of us and his extradition is wrong. He exposed US war crimes exactly like our own in Afghanistan which we are prosecuting.” He also had words for Payne: raise the matter of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in forceful and proud fashion to defend an Australian case. “Or does your view of the [US-Australian] alliance mean you never do that?” Havel would have rolled his eyes.
*
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
“In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization…filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort … to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love… What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.”—Robert F. Kennedy on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is what we have been reduced to: A violent mob. A nation on the brink of martial law. A populace under house arrest. A techno-corporate state wielding its power to immobilize huge swaths of the country. And a Constitution in tatters.
We are imploding on multiple fronts, all at once.
This is what happens when ego, greed and power are allowed to take precedence over liberty, equality and justice.
Just to be clear, however: this is not a revolution.
This is a ticking time bomb.
There is absolutely no excuse for the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Yet no matter which way you look at it, the fallout from this attempted coup could make this worrisome state of affairs even worse.
First, you’ve got the president, who has been accused of inciting a riot and now faces a second impeachment and a scandal that could permanently mar his legacy. While the impeachment process itself is a political beast, the question of whether President Trump incited his followers to riot is one that has even the best legal experts debating. Yet as First Amendment scholar David Hudson Jr. explains, for Trump’s rhetoric to be stripped of its free speech protections, “The speaker must intend to and actually use words that rally people to take illegal action. The danger must be imminent—not in the indefinite future. And the words must be uttered in a situation in which violence is likely to happen.”
At a minimum, Trump’s actions and words—unstatesmanlike and reckless, by any standards—over the course of his presidency and on Jan. 6 helped cause a simmering pot to boil over.
Second, there were the so-called “patriots” who took to the streets because the jailer of their choice didn’t get chosen to knock heads for another four years. Those “Stop the Steal” protesters may have deluded themselves (or been deluded) into believing they were standing for freedom when they stormed the Capitol. However, all they really did was give the Deep State and its corporate partners a chance to pull back the curtain and reveal how little freedom we really have. There is nothing that can be said to justify the actions of those who, armed with metal pipes, chemical irritants, stun guns, and other types of weapons, assaulted and stampeded those in their path.
There are limits to what can be done in the so-called name of liberty, and this level of violence—no matter who wields it or what brand of politics or zealotry motivate them—crossed the line.
Third, you’ve got the tech giants, who meted out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship. Yet there can be no freedom of speech if social media giants can muzzle whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. As Edward Snowden warned, whether it was warranted or not, the social media ban on President Trump signaled a turning point in the battle for control over digital speech. And that is exactly what is playing out as users, including those who have no ties to the Capitol riots, begin to experience lock outs, suspensions and even deletions of their social media accounts.
Remember, the First Amendment is a steam valve. It allows people to peacefully air viewpoints, vent frustrations, debate and disagree, and generally work through the problems of self-governance. Without that safety mechanism in place, self-censorship increases, discontent festers, foment brews, and violence becomes the default response for resolving disputes, whether with the government or each other. At a minimum, we need more robust protections in place to protect digital expression and a formalized process for challenging digital censorship.
Unfortunately, digital censorship is just the beginning. Once you start using social media scores coupled with surveillance capitalism to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society, anything goes. In China, which has been traveling this road for years now, millions of individuals and businesses, blacklisted as “unworthy” based on social media credit scores that grade them based on whether they are “good” citizens, have been banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train.
Certainly, the lack of protocols adopted by the Capitol Police bear an unnerving resemblance to the lack of protocols in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when police who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence failed to do either. In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police “seemed to watch as groups beat each other with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields… At one point, police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured.” Incredibly, when the first signs of open violence broke out, it was reported that the police chief allegedly instructed his staff to “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”
There’s a pattern emerging if you pay close enough attention: Instead of restoring order, local police stand down. Without fail, what should be an exercise in how to peacefully disagree turns ugly the moment looting, vandalism, violence, intimidation tactics and rioting are introduced into the equation. Tensions rise, violence escalates, and federal armies move in.
All that was missing on Jan. 6 was a declaration of martial law.
Which brings us to the fifth point, martial law. Given that the nation has been dancing around the fringes of martial law with each national crisis, it won’t take much more to push the country over the edge to a declaration and military lockdown. The rumblings of armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington, D.C., will only serve to heighten tensions, double down on the government’s military response, and light a match to a powder keg state of affairs. With tens of thousands of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement personnel mobilized to lock down Washington, DC, in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots and in advance of the Jan. 20 inauguration, this could be the largest military show-of-force in recent years.
So where do we go from here?
That all of these events are coming to a head around Martin Luther King Jr. Day is telling.
More than 50 years after King was assassinated, America has become a ticking time bomb of racial unrest and injustice, police militarization, surveillance, government corruption and ineptitude, the blowback from a battlefield mindset and endless wars abroad, and a growing economic inequality between the haves and have nots
Making matters worse, modern America has compounded the evils of racism, materialism and militarism with ignorance, intolerance and fear.
Callousness, cruelty, meanness, immorality, ignorance, hatred, intolerance and injustice have become hallmarks of our modern age, magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets and government-sanctioned brutality.
Every time I read a news headline or flip on the television or open up an email or glance at social media, I run headlong into people consumed with back-biting, partisan politics, sniping, toxic hate, meanness and materialism. Donald Trump is, in many ways, the embodiment of this culture of meanness. Yet as Wayne points out, “Trump is less enabler in chief than a symptom of a free-for-all environment that prizes cutting smears… Social media has normalized casual cruelty.”
This culture of meanness has come to characterize many aspects of the nation’s governmental and social policies. “Meanness today is a state of mind,” writes professor Nicolaus Mills in his book The Triumph of Meanness, “the product of a culture of spite and cruelty that has had an enormous impact on us.”
This casual cruelty is made possible by a growing polarization within the populace that emphasizes what divides us—race, religion, economic status, sexuality, ancestry, politics, etc.—rather than what unites us: we are all human.
This is what writer Anna Quindlen refers to as “the politics of exclusion, what might be thought of as the cult of otherness… It divides the country as surely as the Mason-Dixon line once did. And it makes for mean-spirited and punitive politics and social policy.”
This is more than meanness, however.
This is the psychopathic mindset adopted by the architects of the Deep State, and it applies equally whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.
Beware, because this kind of psychopathology can spread like a virus among the populace.
As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, “[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”
People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”
By failing to actively take a stand for good, we become agents of evil. It’s not the person in charge who is solely to blame for the carnage. It’s the populace that looks away from the injustice, that empowers the totalitarian regime, that welcomes the building blocks of tyranny.
This realization hit me full-force a few years ago. I had stopped into a bookstore and was struck by all of the books on Hitler, everywhere I turned. Yet had there been no Hitler, there still would have been a Nazi regime. There still would have been gas chambers and concentration camps and a Holocaust.
Hitler wasn’t the architect of the Holocaust. He was merely the figurehead. Same goes for the American police state: had there been no Trump or Obama or Bush, there still would have been a police state. There still would have been police shootings and private prisons and endless wars and government pathocracy.
Why? Because “we the people” have paved the way for this tyranny to prevail.
By turning Hitler into a super-villain who singlehandedly terrorized the world—not so different from how Trump is often depicted—historians have given Hitler’s accomplices (the German government, the citizens that opted for security and order over liberty, the religious institutions that failed to speak out against evil, the individuals who followed orders even when it meant a death sentence for their fellow citizens) a free pass.
This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.
None of us who remain silent and impassive in the face of evil, racism, extreme materialism, meanness, intolerance, cruelty, injustice and ignorance get a free pass.
Those among us who follow figureheads without question, who turn a blind eye to injustice and turn their backs on need, who march in lockstep with tyrants and bigots, who allow politics to trump principle, who give in to meanness and greed, and who fail to be outraged by the many wrongs being perpetrated in our midst, it is these individuals who must shoulder the blame when the darkness wins.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that,” Martin Luther King Jr. sermonized.
The darkness is winning
It’s not just on the world stage we must worry about the darkness winning
The darkness is winning in our communities. It’s winning in our homes, our neighborhoods, our churches and synagogues, and our government bodies. It’s winning in the hearts of men and women the world over who are embracing hatred over love. It’s winning in every new generation that is being raised to care only for themselves, without any sense of moral or civic duty to stand for freedom.
John F. Kennedy, killed by an assassin’s bullet five years before King would be similarly executed, spoke of a torch that had been “passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Once again, a torch is being passed to a new generation, but this torch is setting the world on fire, burning down the foundations put in place by our ancestors, and igniting all of the ugliest sentiments in our hearts.
This fire is not liberating; it is destroying.
We are teaching our children all the wrong things: we are teaching them to hate, teaching them to worship false idols (materialism, celebrity, technology, politics), teaching them to prize vain pursuits and superficial ideals over kindness, goodness and depth.
He didn’t live to see that dream become a reality. It’s still not a reality. We haven’t dared to dream that dream in such a long time.
But imagine…
Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to stand up—united—for freedom…
Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to speak out—with one voice—against injustice…
Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to push back—with the full force of our collective numbers—against the evils of government despotism.
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As of mid-December 2020 the US economy has begun showing increasing signs of an exceptionally weak 4th quarter, October-December, growth. After having collapsed -10.5% in the March-June 2020 period, followed by a partial ‘rebound’ (not sustained recovery) in the 3rd quarter, July-September 2020, the economy is now slowing rapidly once again.
Dismal reports of consumer and especially retail sales in October-November appear driving the slowing growth—in turn driven by rising unemployment claims, a growing number of permanent layoffs by large businesses as the economy structurally changes long term, and, shorter term, by a sharp rise in Covid deaths, infections, and consequent partial shutdown of the services sector of the US economy throughout the US.
This scenario and trends has pushed more economists, mainstream included, to predict an even sharper 1st quarter 2021, contraction in the economy. Even a normally conservative forecast source like JPM Chase Bank’s research has raised the likelihood of a bona fide 2nd contraction of the US economy early next year—i.e. a ‘double dip’ recession, that this writer has been predicting since last March 2020.
The failure of both parties in Congress to pass a fiscal stimulus bill as late as mid-December 2020 has exacerbated the slowing economy and likelihood of a further contraction.
Ranks of Unemployed Rising; Benefits Falling
Latest initial unemployment benefit claims have risen, from the steady 1 million per week through the fall, to 1.28 million in early December, a weekly rise of 28%. As claims rise, a steady million per week have been exhausting their benefits for months. This is about to accelerate greatly, as a large block of 12 million are scheduled to end benefits by the last week of December.
Despite the US Labor Department’s monthly ‘low ball’ estimates of a jobless total of only 10.5 million and 6.7% unemployment rate, more than 20 million without jobs are still collecting unemployment benefits—twice the number the Labor Department and media consistently repeat as total jobless today!
Simultaneously, the ranks of the jobless without benefits, or having exhausted benefits, continues to rise as well. Four million workers have dropped out of the labor force altogether. Another 1-2 million have had to quit, in order to manage their K-6 grade children’s remote education. Millions are ‘furloughed’ at home with hope of at some point returning to work but not yet—a status the Labor Department erroneously calls working, and not unemployed, even though they aren’t being paid by their employers. (An error the Labor Dept. has made since last April, acknowledged it was an error, but has refused to correct nonetheless).
Easily at minimum 25 million American workers today as of December 2020 are jobless, either with or without benefits, not 10.5 million. And the unemployment rate is thus closer to 18%-19%–i.e. not even remotely close to the official, cherry-picked low ball number of 6.7% reported monthly by the Labor Department, which even most mainstream economists now ignore.
The Trump administration allowed the expiration of the supplemental $600/week unemployment benefits for millions of jobless last August. That reduced GDP spending by $65 billion a month (not counting multiplier effects on GDP of roughly 2X that amount). Some of that was restored for 5 weeks with $300 supplement unemployment benefits by Trump Executive Order in August. But the money was funded by reducing other government spending elsewhere, so there was no effective positive impact on total spending. That $65 billion (times 2X) negative spending effect on the US economy continued through December, and has no doubt played a part in the 4th quarter US consumer-retail spending slowdown.
The negative impact of reduced unemployment benefits is about to get much worse, however. The 12 million more that will lose benefits on December 26, 2020 is estimated to reduce household spending by another $150 billion per month (plus multiplier). Should current proposals restore half of that $600/wk., the negative household spending impact will still be $75 billion more in addition to the previous $65 billion reduction since August.
Renters’ Crisis Deepening
The real economy’s actual deteriorating condition is further illustrated by the renter crisis gaining momentum weekly. Of the 43 million total rental units in the US, 11.4 million are behind in their rents, averaging around $5,800 per household, for a total of $70 billion, according to the business research company, Moodys Analytics. As evictions moratorium ends in January 2021 many renters (mostly still unemployed) will not only have to start paying rents once again, but will have to make up the $70B in lost rent payments or still face evictions. Even after having been evicted, landlords will still legally pursue back payments.
The renewal of rent payments by renters, while still jobless, combined with back payments, will have a devastating impact on household spending and consumption in 2021, the latter of which accounts for 68% of all US economic spending and GDP.
Contrary to the media reporting, millions are already undergoing evictions and facing legal orders to repay back rents. The initial rent moratorium passed last March as part of the Cares Act (‘mitigation bill 1.0’) did not cover all renters, as the mainstream media consistently suggests, but covered mostly those whose housing was associated with government aid by the HUD and FHA agencies. States and cities in some cases had initiated local moratoria . But most of those local moratoria expired months ago. Trump’s Executive Order last August 2020 extended rent moratorium on federally supported rent units, but only until end of December 2020.
Issued by the Trump administration’s CDC in September, Trump’s EO for rent moratorium expiration will result in 2.4 to 5 million of renters evicted in January 2021 alone, with millions more per month thereafter, according the Wall St. Journal. Moreover, the Trump EO did not prevent landlords from initiating legal action to evict. Hundreds of thousands of evictions are already in progress and legally proceeding in cities across the US, per the Princeton University Evictions Lab. Most heavily impacted are minority households. A recent survey by the US Census Bureau indicates 32% of black renters and 18% of Hispanic renters were behind on rent payments, and about 12% of white renting households.
Homeowners Mortgages Crisis Brewing
While the picture is not as dire for homeowners as for renters, it too is deteriorating and will be intensifying in 2021.
There are 82 million single homes in the US. 49 million (62%) have mortgages. At present 3.6 million are in forbearance, meaning mortgage payments have been temporarily suspended. Suspended payments will have to resume in 2021, however, much like rent back payments suspended require payment. Like renters, homeowners may have to double up on mortgage payments, in whole or part, commencing 2021. It is estimated that 6.8% of homeowners have missed payments in 2020. That’s 5.5 million of homeowners—i.e. the 3.6 million in forbearance but another 1.9 million not and who have been missing monthly mortgage payments.
The percentages and totals for mortgage payments in arrears may seem less a problem than the renters’ missed payments. But the totals are actually far greater in terms of back money owed: all the deferred and missed mortgage payments amount to $752 billion in back payments that have to be made up. That make up will reduce household spending by another hundreds of billions of dollars in 2021, with further negative impact on US GDP in 2021.
Student Loan Forbearance Ending
Like renters and homeowners, the March 2020 Cares Act permitted suspension and deferral of student loan payments until year end 2020. Also like rent and mortgages, however, that deferral is scheduled to end in 2021. Students will have to make up payments and in effect ‘double down’ on payments in most cases.
The negative impact on ‘doubling down’ and making up lost payments is massive. There are 44.7 million student loans in the US, averaging $36,500. Hundreds of thousands own much more. Many more than $100,000. 35 million of the 44.7 million student loans were in forbearance in 2020 and the deferred principal will have to be repaid. The total principal alone, temporarily deferred, amounts to $777 billion in arrears.
Payroll Tax Deferrals
When Trump and his negotiators abruptly broke off negotiations on the fiscal stimulus bill in August 2020, they issued 4 Executive Orders with 24 hours (thus indicating they had planned to do so from the beginning, after having lured Pelosi-Shumer and the Democrats to reduce their May 2020 $3.2 trillion original stimulus proposal called the Heroes Act by $1 trillion).
Among the Trump four EOs was one that deferred payroll taxes of 6.2% for workers for the rest of 2020. (The other three EOs were the temporary substitution of $300/wk. supplemental unemployment benefits for five weeks; extending student loan forbearance to end of December; and the CDC’s partial extension of rent moratorium for 5 million renters). The EO affecting payroll taxes was clearly unconstitutional. Only Congress could change tax laws. But Trump went ahead anyway with the 6.2% payroll tax deferral. Not all businesses followed suit, however.
Since employers by law are responsible for collective payroll taxes, they knew they were on the hook to repay the deferred 6.2% in 2021. They would have to add 6.2% to their employer share of 6.2% nonetheless in 2020 and then repay that in 2021. That meant doubling up on paying their share and their workers’ share of 6.2% (deferred September to December 2020) starting January 2021.
It could mean paying payroll taxes of twice that 12.4% in 2021, however. Employers were allowed to temporary suspend their 6.2% payroll taxes since March 2020, and starting repaying that deferred amount plus new payroll taxes by end of 2021. Not many wanted to face the prospect of paying double payroll taxes for both themselves, the company, and collecting and paying double for their workers as well—or 24.8% in payroll taxes. So most opted out of the Trump EO and didn’t stop their workers from paying the 6.2% in 2020.
Most large corporations opted out, including GM, UPS, Fedex, Costco, grocery chains, health companies, big Pharma, utilities, and many states as well. Trump forced federal government employees to suspend their payroll tax payments, September-December 2020. Other states and local governments did so as well. Starting January 2021 now many will have to start paying double payroll taxes. That will in turn reduce millions of public employees’ available disposable income for consumption in 2021. And that too will reduce US GDP in 2021.
Small Business Collapsing
Even greater magnitude of potential negative impact on the US economy is the current accelerating closing of many small businesses. There are an estimated 30 million small businesses in the US economy, which include millions of small ‘independent contractors’. Estimates by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the trade organization for small business, are 3.3 million have permanently closed as of November 1, 2020. More than 110,000 restaurants, or every one of six. Hundreds of thousands more restaurants, bars, entertainment, travel, and related service small businesses are likely to close over the coming winter months. The impact on consumption, as well as business spending and unemployment, promises to be significant—and in addition to all the preceding negative effects on the US economy.
What is especially concerning about this scenario is that ever since August 2020 the Trump administration has sat on $135 billion in unspent funds allocated by the March 2020 Cares Act for loans and grants for small businesses assistance. $670 billion total was approved by the Cares Act for the PPP program, as it was called, to provide assistance to small business. Much of that was siphoned off and redirected to larger businesses. Millions of very small businesses received nothing. Despite the need in August, the program was ended in August with $135 billion unspent.
From Stimulus to Mitigation 2.0 Negotiations
What started out as a true economic stimulus bill in the form of the Heroes Act, passed by the US House last May 2020, has by mid-December collapsed into a partial economic ‘mitigation’ bill. Mitigation means just buying time until a true fiscal stimulus can be introduced. Mitigations simply slow down the economic collapse and crisis temporarily, to buy time. True stimulus proposals do just that: generate economic growth that is sustained for months and years to come.
The May 2020 Heroes Act was a true stimulus, proposing $3.2 trillion in new spending across a broad set of programs. It was immediately rejected by McConnell and the Trump administration, both of whom then played ‘hard cop/soft cop’ in negotiations with Democrats over the next six months. In August 2020 Democrat negotiators, Pelosi and Shumer, were lured into reducing their package of Heroes Act spending by $1 Trillion, down to $2.2T, in expectation—signaled by the Trump administration it would similarly respond with a major counteroffer to the Democrats $1 trillion proposal reduction. But they didn’t. Trump’s negotiators, Mnuchin and Meadows, simply walked out of negotiations after Pelosi-Shumer had come down $1 trillion. Meanwhile, McConnell sat back watching the show, holding firm on his no more than $500 billion spending proposal he offered in June.
As the 2020 election grew closer, Trump-Mnuchin offered several new proposals—without any details—to ensure it appeared they were interested in a deal. The latest in October was reportedly as high as $1.8 trillion. It appeared a deal was possible, with the Democrats at $2.2 trillion since August. However, McConnell scuttled the negotiations by making it clear he would not approve more than his $500 billion. Having been burned the previous August, Pelosi and Shumer did not ‘bite’ at the Trump shadow offer, correctly assuming it was pre-election posturing. Had they done so, Trump would have taken credit; no deal would have been reached; and McConnell would have stalled discussions—as he has ever since to the present.
Following the election in November 3, the next development was Mnuchin recalling $455 billion in unused funds from the Federal Reserve given to the central bank the preceding April as part of the Cares Act. That was to be used to help bail out businesses. The Fed did not use much of the Cares Act given it by the US Treasury and Congress, including $135 billion unspent on the small business aid program called the Payroll Protection Program, PPP. That program ended in August, but the Fed held onto the $135 billion, as well as other funds for medium sized and larger businesses and various financial markets. The total unspent came to $455 billion, which Mnuchin then told the Fed to return to the Treasury, which it did. Both Mnuchin and McConnell would use the $455 billion to pay for McConnell’s $500 billion long-standing offer in stimulus negotiations in December.
To attempt to break the bargaining logjam, in December a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives offered a compromise package of $908 billion. There were no $1200 income checks, only half of unemployment benefits for only 90 days, no aid to state and local governments, and numerous other provisions missing from the Democrats’ $2.2 trillion package on the bargaining table. Nevertheless, McConnell still rejected the $908B compromise. He then cleverly offered to drop his ‘stalking horse’ proposal for business blanket liability if the Democrats dropped their $160 billion in aid to state and local governments.
In the latest iteration of the negotiation charade, the bipartisan group on December 14, 2020 revised their $908B proposal, reducing it to $748 billion by taking out the $160B for state and local government. It split its prior single $908B offer into two parts: one with the state-local government aid and the business liability; the other with all the remaining proposals it had originally offered.
As of mid-December, the proposal on the table by the bipartisan group, accepted in principle by the Democrats but not McConnell, is as follows:
Unemployment half benefits at $300/wk through March 2021
PPP small business funding of $300B, now with no need to use to pay workers’ wages
$45B for airlines & transport businesses (despite airlines with $billions of cash on hand)
No $1200 checks
Student loan forbearance continued for 3 more months
Renter evictions moratorium continued for one month
$82 billion for education
$13 billion for emergency food assistance
$35 billion for health care providers
$13 billion more for farmers & agribusiness (after receiving $70B since 2019)
$25 billion rent assistance (payable to landlords)
The important point of the total $748B, however, is that it too is a temporary ‘mitigation’ proposal—not a true stimulus bill.
Like the March 2020 Cares Act, also a mitigation bill, it will only buy a little more time for an economy clearly in a deep slowdown in the 4th quarter and on the brink of another double dip recession in 2021, if one were to agree with Chase bank!
The Cares Act of March was only $1.1 to $1.5 trillion in actual spending—not the $3 trillion mainstream media often noted. $650 billion of $3 trillion was business tax cuts that were mostly hoarded. And more than $1.1 trillion for medium and big business bailouts that didn’t happen by the Fed loans, the funds of which were returned to the Treasury in December. Big businesses were bailed out, but via Fed other $3 trillion plus money injections into the banks and markets—not by the Cares Act.
So the Cares Act was a temporary mitigation bill that ran out of spending by late summer. And the bipartisan group proposal of $748 billion is an even smaller mitigation bill that will run out of funds well before next spring.
There is, and there has been, no fiscal stimulus since the crisis began. Nor is a stimulus on the horizon. More importantly, what this means for the economy is that the lack of a true fiscal stimulus for 2021 means the double dip recession looms ever larger on the horizon now! Unemployed workers, renters and homeowners, student debt, double taxed workers, and small businesses will get another temporary partial assistance. And should the Democrats not win both seats in the Georgia Senate runoff elections on January 5, 2021, McConnell will retain control of the Senate and it will be four more years of ‘No, No, No’ in help to those truly in need. The implications of that for the US economy, and for Democrats in 2022 mid-term elections, is obvious. But that’s the likely intention and game plan of McConnell and the Trumpublicans no doubt.
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Professor of Politics Keith Whittington argued as follows: “(T)he ability to disqualify a former officer who has been demonstrated to have committed grave abuses of office in the past might be valuable.” Not according to Law Professor Ross Garber arguing that constitutional language limits impeachment to current office holders
As an Ontario nurse wrote me yesterday, his hospital’s ER is running at half-capacity (despite “surging cases” of this common cold virus). Seems people are healthier than ever. Maybe they are getting more sleep during lockdown, more home-cooked meals? Or maybe they’re just too darned scared to go to the hospital?
What occurred at the United States Capitol last week was surely reprehensible, but to my mind the real enduring damage that was done to our form of government took place in a basement in Wilmington Delaware where president-designate Joe Biden was putting together some of the final pieces of his foreign policy and national security team.
In my view, the Great Reset, which advances at warp speed, if we don’t stop it, will reduce the world to “modern” feudalism, one ruler and a herd of serfs that are provided with the necessary means to survive — and their brains have been converted (by the injections that go under the absurd name of vaccines), with electromagnetic gels, into “transhumans”.
Anyone who believes locking President Donald Trump out of his social media accounts will serve as the first step on the path to healing the political divide in the United States is likely to be in for a bitter disappointment.
First, in the hope of generating greater consideration of the human condition and the state of the planet, I have presented in straightforward language and point form, a reasonable summary of the nature and extent of our predicament as well as citing the relevant scientific and/or other evidence that explains each problem in more detail.
Is it ever wise for a social media platform to suspend the accounts of political representatives, especially if they are of such character as Donald J. Trump? The question is a big tangle, though anything to do with the exiting US president encourages hotted up simple binaries, most of it emotive rather than cerebral.
How ever one might characterize the events of January 6 or the several weeks since the election, one thing is certain: Millions of people in the United States have lost respect for U.S. institutions. Across the political spectrum, people are adopting a common cry that the U.S. government doesn’t represent their interests.
Tyrants in other countries commit serious atrocities, but provided they continue to implement economic policies that the US and Britain like, they receive little criticism. Our politicians regularly criticise governments they want to replace, and the media repeat these criticisms with little challenge.
It’s hard. Life today seems like a dream, doesn’t it? Surreal to the point where everything seems haunted and betwixt and between, or this against that, or that and this against us.
Masked Agenda is a dystopian sci-fi short film set after the masks were introduced into society to prevent the spread of the virus.
The vaccine has been found, but is only successful on a few…
Kain is a survivor after escaping being locked down in his cell, but the droids are tracking him and he is on the move to get out of city…
Is this the end of the world ?
Or the start to a new one?
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“We don’t understand how your government gets the media to repeat propaganda without question. In our country we have to tear finger nails out to get this level of co-operation.”(1) (Russian journalists visiting America during the cold war)
Censorship By Omission – The Things That Are Not Discussed Are The Most Important
“Great is truth, but even greater from a practical point of view is silence about truth” (Aldous Huxley(2))
We can see the outcome of the filtering system discussed in the previous post by looking at coverage of politics overseas. Tyrants in other countries commit serious atrocities, but provided they continue to implement economic policies that the US and Britain like, they receive little criticism. Our politicians regularly criticise governments they want to replace, and the media repeat these criticisms with little challenge. A recent example of this is when the media says that ‘life is terrible in Venezuela, we must do something’, meaning that the US and British governments want to overthrow the government of Venezuela.(3) The mainstream coverage is dumbed-down and superficial. It is based upon unstated assumptions which, if examined, turn out to be untrue. What is missing is context, history, and critical thinking, such as(4)
a) The historical role of wealthy elites, backed by the US, plundering Venezuela’s resources and maintaining inequality and poverty
b) The positive achievements of recent left-wing governments in Venezuela improving living standards for the poor
c) The serious problems caused by US sanctions on Venezuela
d) The track record of murder and torture by right-wing dictators put in place by the US throughout South and Central America
e) A wider discussion of US and British imperialism, their records of violence in the pursuit of control and profits, and the evidence that they have never carried out humanitarian intervention.
More generally, there is no exploration of complex issues, no critical analysis of the true role of our military, no serious critique of the corporate system, and no questioning of the incorrect assumption that our governments and corporations are benign or benevolent. What should be the most important issues in society today are virtually unmentionable in the mainstream press.
This failure to discuss most of the important issues, and the discussion of other topics in a narrow way, is known as censorship-by-omission. It is the main method for keeping us poorly informed. It applies most obviously to coverage of war, which is so sanitised that US and British viewers rarely get to see the true results of our wars.(5) What they see is government propaganda videos of laser-guided bombs hitting their targets. When a single American or British soldier dies, this is worthy of a news report, usually saying how brave they were. There is no mention of the fact that they are trained killers who are dead because they have illegally invaded and occupied someone else’s country, and helped to slaughter huge numbers of innocent people.
The true scale of death and injury, of Iraqis and Afghans, killed by our troops in our wars is not discussed by the mainstream media. If everyone saw the mutilated corpses and horrific injuries of civilians every day, populations would be less likely to believe the lies that create a false justification for war. By not examining the consequences of war in much greater detail, most of the media end up creating the illusion that war is like a video game where our ‘good’ guys fight against someone else’s ‘bad’ guys, and that we should celebrate every time ‘bad’ guys get killed. As critics of the mainstream media have noted, journalists who reinforce the belief that the “world is made up of humanitarian interventionists (us) and monster states (them) are vital cogs in the machinery of state killing”.(6)
The Illusion of Critical Media
The aim of the mainstream media is to
“limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”(7)
Endless stories about political manoeuvres; who is saying what about whom; and the character of politicians, are not real news. They are peripheral issues and distractions that create the illusion of having in-depth debates in order to avoid talking about the most important issues.
As well as ignoring or limiting the discussions of some topics, the media will exaggerate the importance of other issues. A clear example is the allegation that Russia manipulated the 2016 US election, which was repeated endlessly in the US media.(8) The evidence for this manipulation was extremely weak, and if there was any Russian manipulation, the effect was negligible. On the other hand, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other US organisations, have interfered in 81 foreign elections since 1950.(9) They manipulate elections abroad more than everyone else put together. This is well documented, but the mainstream US and British media never discuss this.
Sometimes the media do mention specific instances of wrongdoing, but in general this will be presented as individuals operating outside the system. There will be little criticism of the system itself. For example, when corporations appear in the news having committed serious fraud, the focus is usually on a single corporation, with little attempt to explain that they have been carrying out activities similar to many other big corporations, and that much of the corporate system now involves criminal, fraudulent, or unethical activity. Similarly, when torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was discussed, the focus was on the low-ranking individuals who were involved.(10) There was little effort to blame the top-level planners who created the policies, and to insist that they should have been prosecuted.
The Mysterious Case of Right and Left-Wing Bias
These posts describe the media as having pro-establishment, pro-war, pro-corporate or right-wing bias. However, the media is often accused (particularly by the government) of having anti-government or left-wing bias. This is partly explained by governments trying to deflect attention from their crimes, but there are other explanations for this apparent contradiction. Many journalists claim that if they are receiving equal numbers of accusations of left-wing and right-wing bias, they must actually be somewhere in the middle, and the accusations actually reflect the bias of the accuser. This is not true. The terms right-wing and left-wing are being used to mean different things. Most journalists are middle-class white people who tend to favour freedom for individuals on personal matters. The media therefore have a left-wing bias on cultural issues, such as gay marriage. However, those who accuse the media of right-wing bias are talking about foreign and economic policy. The media is uncritical of Britain and the US invading other countries, and uncritical of corporate power, so they have a right-wing bias on these issues.
The Mainstream Media Are Not Unbiased or Impartial
There are many sources of bias. Most information that supports the US or British governments gets presented without question – it is assumed to be unbiased. This was the case with government propaganda stating that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had Weapons of Mass Destruction before the Iraq war, which was not true. On the other hand, if someone criticises the government, they are assumed to be biased, so a government spokesperson is invited to appear on TV to oppose that point of view.
Broadcasters claim that they are providing unbiased coverage if they present the viewpoints of both Republicans and Democrats in the US, or if they present both Conservative and Labour viewpoints in Britain. But prior to Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party in 2015, there was often little difference between the two parties in either country on the most important issues, particularly war or corporate power. To genuinely present a balanced discussion, broadcasters would have to invite people saying ‘destroying a nation is a crime, we should not go to war’ onto their shows regularly. If our media were honest, the mainstream government view, which is that the US and Britain have the right to invade or destroy other nations when they pose no threat to us, would be considered insane.
Media coverage in both Britain and the US has been analysed in detail after various wars. The vast majority is pro-war. Only a few voices are critical, and even then only in narrow ways, such as “we did not plan the war carefully enough” or “we did not send enough troops”.(11) There is almost no questioning of the government’s actual motivation – it is always assumed to be good. In one academic study of war reporting, it was found that the BBC was actually more biased in favor of war than any of the other TV stations analysed, including one from the US. Only 2% of the BBC’s coverage was strongly anti-war.(12)
A similar study in the US found that only 3% of US guests on news programs were anti-war.(13) In Britain and the US, the mainstream media promote US-led wars almost unquestioningly.In relation to the invasion of Iraq, most newspapers and TV channels portrayed US President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair as wonderful leaders trying to help other nations achieve democracy, when the evidence overwhelmingly contradicted this.(14) If Russia had destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the media would (correctly) be saying how outrageous these crimes are, and demanding that the leaders responsible be prosecuted.
The Death of Critical Journalism
Quite a few British and US journalists realised in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq that they had been used by their governments to transmit propaganda. Mainstream US news channels did eventually concede that they should have been more questioning about the invasion. Some are now on the record as saying that they have been unable to report the truth during military actions due to the system of government-controlled propaganda and embedded journalists (these are journalists who can be controlled because they travel with the soldiers). A leading war reporter, Christiane Amanpour, stated that her network, CNN, was muzzled (censored) by the US government, and that it also “self-muzzled”.(15)
Some journalists claimed that they would be more critical and questioning after Iraq, but in fact they have become even less critical.(16) Journalists in Australia stated that since 2001 there has been more and more censorship,(17) and that the general public has no idea what is really going on. By the time of the US and British bombing and destruction of Libya in 2011, there was almost no criticism from the mainstream media.
We discussed in the previous post how senior BBC staff were fired after receiving flak from the government over the 2003 Iraq war. This led to a decrease (from already low levels) in media criticism. In 2013, computers at the Guardian newspaper were destroyed by the security services(18) because the Guardian had participated in the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden, which showed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on everyone through their phones and computers. The destruction of the computers was just for show, as all the data was backed up on computers elsewhere. However, since then, the mainstream media in Britain and the US have been extremely compliant. The Australian government has also cracked down on accurate reporting of its war-crimes and spying activities, by raiding the homes of journalists and the headquarters of the broadcaster ABC.(19)
One of the few TV stations to portray the darker side of US power has been Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar. Its war reporting has consistently tried much harder to show the horrors of war and to show US war crimes for what they are. For this reason, the Al-Jazeera studios in Kabul were bombed by US forces.(20)
Since 2006, the most important source of accurate news has been the website, Wikileaks, set up by Julian Assange. It publishes evidence from whistleblowers, and makes all the evidence available for everyone to examine, without journalists or politicians applying their heavily-distorted interpretation. The documents that have been sent to Wikileaks include 91,000 US military reports for the War in Afghanistan, and 490,000 reports for the war in Iraq. These have been described as the “most finely detailed history of war that has ever been disclosed. Precise times, locations, kill counts.”(21) Wikileaks analysed these documents and showed that the total number of violent deaths in Afghanistan due to US action was hundreds of thousands of people.(22) This information has been extremely embarrassing for the US and British governments, who prefer to be able to commit their war crimes in secret. For this reason they (together with the Swedish government) have been persecuting Julian since 2010. The United Nations expert on torture, Nils Melzer, has described Julian’s treatment as torture.(23) The purpose of persecuting him is to send a message to all other journalists and whistleblowers that if they expose the crimes of the US government, it doesn’t matter where they live or work, it doesn’t matter where they are from, the US government will persecute them too.(24)
The Mainstream Media is the Real Fake News
A recent development is ‘Fake News’. This is an attempt by the mainstream to pretend that what they write is honest journalism, and that the critical voices on the internet are themselves just propaganda outlets. The internet carries every perspective imaginable, some of it bizarre, some of it no better than the mainstream, and much of it replicates the mainstream. However, if you can work out where to look and who to read, most of the best reporting on serious issues is now on critical, non-mainstream, websites.
Look at the Evidence
When the ideas in these posts are discussed with mainstream journalists, their first response tends to be ‘that’s just your opinion’. But the world is not just made up of opinions. There is such a thing as evidence, which can be used to assess the accuracy and truthfulness of an opinion. Many mainstream media statements are evidence-free. They are copies of what politicians and corporate leaders have said. Evidence which contradicts those statements is mostly ignored. Despite the huge amount of detail about US and British crimes and atrocities in declassified government documents, and in Wikileaks’ documents, the mainstream media in Britain and the US still fail to seriously challenge US-led wars.
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Rod Driver is a part-time academic who is particularly interested in de-bunking modern-day US and British propaganda. This is the twelfth in a series entitled Elephants In The Room, which attempts to provide a beginners guide to understanding what’s really going on in relation to war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media.
Exact quote is “journalists who reflexively reinforce an authorised, manichean view of the world – a world made up of humanitarian interventionists (us) and monster states (them) – are vital cogs in the machinery of state killing.”
7) Noam Chomsky, The Common Good, Odonian Press, 1998
With regard to the coverage of the Wednesday Capitol Event, Global Research will be publishing opposing and contradictory points of view by several of our authors.
We are dealing with a complex and far-reaching political process. We are at the crossroads of a major political, economic and social crisis which has bearing on the future of the United States. This crisis must be the object of debate and analysis rather than confrontation of opposing political narratives.
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Since the assault on the US Capitol on January 6 by right-wing Trump supporters, the fallout has been rapid. The Democrats, both elected officials and voters, were quick to jump on the impeachment train. Some elected officials are calling for Members of Congress who supported the events to resign and to refuse to seat them in the new Congress. Employers are firing employees who participated or supported the events. And, people on the Left are cheering on social media censorship and calling for stronger laws to go after domestic terrorists.
It is important in times of crisis like this to pause, take a deep breath and think about the ramifications of our responses given the present makeup of the US political structure. It is also necessary to look past the events of January 6 to the conditions that created the environment in which this type of action could occur and what it will take to change them.
The inauguration of President Joe Biden on January 20 is not the end of the era referred to as Trumpism. Violent right-wing forces have been activated and they are not going away unless major actions are taken to divide them and remove the material conditions that gave rise to them. That is our task going forward.
What happened in Washington, DC on the 6th of January was not a surprise. Trump supporters had rallied in DC twice after the election, and each time they were violent, particularly against Black people and others opposed to police violence. Businesses in downtown DC were boarded up and closed in anticipation of the demonstrations on the 5th and 6th. Police advised DC residents to avoid the downtown area, and that is what Black Lives Matter DC decided to do, staying in their communities to keep everyone safe.
The DCist describes the events of January 5 when Trump supporters rallied in Freedom Plaza for eight hours. Claims of electoral fraud were widespread. Tuesday night, Trump supporters fought with police. Ten of them were arrested, some on gun charges.
Popular Resistance field reporter, John Zangas, covered the events at the Capitol on January 6. He described police on the West side trying to hold the Trump supporters back from entering the building using tear gas and flash bangs. As police blocked the entrance, Trump supporters broke windows and entered the building anyway. Elsewhere, Capitol police were filmed letting the Trump supporters through the bicycle rack blockades, beckoning them inside and standing by as they entered the building. There are photos of police taking selfies with Trump supporters and reports of them providing directions to people who entered the Capitol. Some of the Trump supporters were police officers who showed their badges and some were members of the military.
It is clear that the Capitol police failed to prepare for the violence that occurred that day despite advance warnings. They have had stronger responses to non-violent protests in the past that completely blocked access to the Capitol. The events at the Capitol clearly demonstrated what was obvious throughout the protests this past summer, that police identify with and ally with white supremacists, including their militias. The Brennan Center report, “Hidden In Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, And Far-Right Militancy In Law Enforcement,” issued last August details that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are well aware of these connections. They write:
“The harms that armed law enforcement officers affiliated with violent white supremacist and anti-government militia groups can inflict on American society could hardly be overstated. Yet despite the FBI’s acknowledgement of the links between law enforcement and these suspected terrorist groups, the Justice Department has no national strategy designed to identify white supremacist police officers or to protect the safety and civil rights of the communities they patrol.”
The Brennan Center report called for swift action to remove white supremacists from law enforcement and other policy changes. Yet, despite months of President Trump and others claiming electoral fraud and riling up the base plus violent assaults on state capital buildings, the federal government failed to take action to prevent harm. The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund is calling for a full investigation into the police’s actions that day and holding those who “condoned or colluded with the violent mob that attacked the Capitol” accountable.
It is critical that those who are responsible for violence against people and threats of harming or killing elected officials are held accountable, but it is just as important that what happened is not used to further strengthen the repressive apparatus of the state. Evan Greer warns that Biden, the architect of the 1994 Violent Crime Bill and Law Enforcement Act that led to mass incarceration, is already calling for a domestic terrorism bill even though domestic terrorism is currently illegal. Greer writes:
“More money, weapons, and technology in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security—an agency complicit in human rights abuses long before Trump took office—won’t stop the rising threat of right-wing violence. Instead it will be used to suppress legitimate dissent, and disproportionately target Black and brown activists, Muslims, immigrant communities, and social movements that effectively challenge systemic injustice and corporate power.”
This is the situation in which we live. Most often, laws that increase surveillance or policing are used against vulnerable communities and don’t keep them safe. The same goes for censorship. Many cheered when President Trump was banned from Twitter and Facebook, but do we really want private corporations silencing online speech? Both Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald warn us against starting down this slippery slope.
And similarly, there have been social media posts cheering that people who attended the pro-Trump rally were fired from their jobs for being there. At present, employers across the country are seeking out and firing employeeswho attended or showed support for the assault on the Capitol. It is one thing if an employee broke the law such as illegally entering the Capitol. It is another to be present at a march, which is protected by the First Amendment. Again, we must be aware that in the current environment, precedents set by the response to this action at the Capitol will be used against other people in the future.
Economist Jack Rasmus predicted the events on January 6 would be designed to create chaos as part of a long term strategy by Trump supporters. Trump was certainly aware that he could not actually conduct a coup, and legislative bodies are not typically the target of coup attempts anyway. Rasmus argues that Trump will work to split the Republican party, driving the moderates out and further cementing his base. He may even behave similarly to the strategy used by the United States to try to conduct regime change in Venezuela – claim an election is fraudulent, refuse to accept the results and run a parallel government.
The era of Trumpism does not end with the inauguration of Joe Biden. Joe Lauria of Consortium News calls January 6 a “dress rehearsal for what may well turn into a full-blown insurrection.” He urges that steps be taken to prevent this, but he doesn’t offer suggestions as to what they should be.
This weekend, I spoke with Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition on Clearing the FOG (available on Monday) about what steps would be effective. In addition to holding those who broke the law and law enforcement who assisted them accountable, it is important to hold President Trump accountable. Rather than impeachment, which is what the Democrats are doing and what they and their voters have championed since President Trump was elected, the President needs to be investigated by an independent body in the Department of Justice and prosecuted for his crimes.
Impeachment when Trump is on his way out the door will only deepen the political divide and embolden him with his base. He can continue to rail against the Democrats for unfairly targeting him. On the other hand, a prosecution and possible conviction will remove him as a leader figure for the white supremacists and weaken them.
In addition to that, it is fundamental that we change the material conditions in which people live. The blame for the situation today lies squarely with both the Democrats and Republicans. They are responsible for decades of policies that have created great economic insecurity, which has been exploited by the right to drive racism, xenophobia and fear. The United States government has failed its people in every way through neoliberalism and the funneling of wealth to the top 1%. This is especially egregious during a recession and pandemic when tens of millions of people have lost their jobs and health insurance and are at risk of losing their homes and nearly 400,000 people have died.
Instead of moving with urgency to impeach Trump, Congress should show the same urgency to pass national improved Medicare for All, a guaranteed basic income that brings everyone above the poverty line, erasure of debt and investment in an eco-socialist Green New Deal that creates millions of high quality jobs while repairing our failing infrastructure, building a green economy and addressing the climate crisis. This can be funded by significant cuts to the military budget and through a wealth tax, as well as reclaiming the government’s ability to print money. These are actions that will begin to bring prosperity to the people and heal the divisions.
There is more that needs to be done to end structural racism as well, by ending mass incarceration, removing racial bias from law enforcement and the judicial system, employing transformative justice, and changing school curriculum to be less euro-centric and more multicultural, to name a few. In the end, our goal needs to be the development of structures that empower People(s)-Centered Human Rights.
Finally, we must recognize that our struggle is global. What the United States government has done to its people by denying them what they need to live a life of dignity is what the United States has imposed upon people around the world through economic sanctions and military domination. The tactics used by President Trump to try to hold onto power through lies and violent right wing actors are the same as the US uses around the world to overthrow governments. This needs to stop. And, as Vijay Prashad and Noam Chomsky write, the world is facing existential crises that demand international cooperation to protect our future.
All of these are winnable, but none of them are going to come without a struggle. President Biden has already signaled that he will rule to the right of center and his cabinet picks signal business as usual. Democrats in Congress are already watering down their bold rhetoric used during Trump’s term. They are calling for lowering the age of Medicare instead of Medicare for All and $2,000 checks for people who are unemployed instead of recognizing that many workers are still living in poverty.
Our future depends on organizing in our communities to demand what we require and not letting the Democrats tell us we are asking for too much or that we can’t have it because “this is a time for unity” as they usually do. The crises we face are severe and the right wing violent backlash is real. We have to stop them with bold solutions that work. The period of plutocracy must end.
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Margaret Flowers is the director of Popular Resistance where this article was originally published. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Two Januarys ago, an obscure politician from a minor political party named Juan Guaido assumed a one-month chairmanship of the Venezuelan National Assembly. Then he promptly declared himself the interim president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The bizarre declaration had no legal standing. But that did not stop the Trump administration and later, the European Union, from recognizing this fictional presidency.
For most in the world, this was yet another in a series of illegal U.S. efforts to control the politics of countries in the global South. Supporting dictators, overthrowing governments with violence and destroying nations have been at the center of each of the U.S. global policies since the United States became the leader of the colonial/capitalist Western alliance in 1945.
But as Malcolm X once said, “The chickens have come home to roost.”
How ever one might characterize the events of January 6 or the several weeks since the election, one thing is certain: Millions of people in the United States have lost respect for U.S. institutions. Across the political spectrum, people are adopting a common cry that the U.S. government doesn’t represent their interests.
Decades of neoliberal austerity, low wages, de-industrialization, privatization of public services like healthcare facilities, the looting of public resources to transfer to the military-industrial complex and the inability of the state to protect the fundamental human rights of the people have created the crisis of legitimacy that has made it difficult for the U.S. ruling class to govern in the same old way.
And so, as BAP predicted when we launched in April 2017, the elites default to repression. The events of January 6 have given the rulers an opportunity to move even more rapidly to narrow the range of acceptable political thought and participation. Calls have come from some quarters of the public for retribution against the individuals that “breached” the Capitol. Now, state authorities—including Big Tech companies that have emerged as unrecognized agents of the state—have moved remarkably close to branding Trump supporters as criminal elements who deserve to be relegated to the social death that de-platforming renders today.
These dangerous times require sober, unemotional analysis and clear politics for those of us who have always been on the receiving end of U.S. political repression.
The ongoing crisis of the colonial-capitalist system is creating new expressions of what might be referred to as fascism. One framework defines fascism as the “open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” When the whole ruling class—led by finance capital—line up with Joe Biden and Democrats, we must be careful in our analysis and positions.
The Democratic Party agenda for restoring “legitimacy” to the system will come at a cost. As oppressed peoples and workers in the United States who are in alignment with the laboring classes and oppressed nations of the world, we must not allow fascists in any guise to rebuild legitimacy at our expense.
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This was Twitter Safety’s January 8 post, full of noble concern: “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them – specifically how they are being received and interpreted off Twitter – we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Is it ever wise for a social media platform to suspend the accounts of political representatives, especially if they are of such character as Donald J. Trump? The question is a big tangle, though anything to do with the exiting US president encourages hotted up simple binaries, most of it emotive rather than cerebral. As with any forms of expression, the inner censor starts taking hold against content that is disliked, considered offensive or, as in the recent round of Trump tweets, delusionary and inciting in character.
The reaction of Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) to Twitter’s suspension of Trump’s account was but one example of the censor writ large. Bowman had taken to the platform to demand that Twitter suspend the president’s account, and asked why he was “still out there tweeting after inciting a fascist mob”. This streakily hyperbolic statement was nothing compared to the joyous, ghoulish note he posted on learning of the suspension: banning the president from Twitter had been as significant as the capturing Saddam Hussein. Wonderful of Bowman to remind voters of a catastrophic, illegal invasion of a country supposedly armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction, and eager to deploy them against the US and its allies.
The reasons for Twitter’s suspension of the account were themselves political acts initiated by a market actor. Barring the most powerful office holder in the United States from having an avenue to his supporters is an open admission to political interference. It is a position on restricting and suppressing forms of communication to constituents and voters, notably ones deemed unsavoury in accordance to piecemeal rules made by market considerations.
The company actually identifies the culprit tweets as well. One was the announcement that Trump would not be attending President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20. (Is it even their business to be worried about ceremonial protocol?) The second involved praise for “75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me,” and were not to be “disrespected or treated unfairly”. The timing was important here, given the march on and into the US Capitol a few days prior.
Twitter duly editorialises, disapproves and dispenses.
“Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behaviour from his account in recent weeks.”
The virtue of having Trump vent his spleen all over Twitter should be palpably obvious: to open a door to his indignant, at times adolescent world, one unvarnished and uncontaminated by any advisory circle.
Conventions could be trashed; the acceptable could be sullied and soiled. This did wonders for instability and bedevilled the Washington establishment, but it was an inspiring weapon for his supporters and a shock to the business-as-usual cadres who think democracy is good as long as it is conveniently correct. The president was no longer kept within the cage of sober expertise and cautious control. He was, quite literally, in global circulation.
Trump supporters are naturally indignant about the move, and have, erroneously, drawn the wrong conclusion about whether his free speech has been affected or not.
The First Amendment was intended to protect citizens from government action vis-à-vis that speech, not the inconsistent, bumbling decisions of well-moneyed social media behemoths. Jeremy Mishkin of Montgomery McCracken in Philadelphia, an advocate versed in First Amendment jurisprudence, suggests that the protection does not apply if Twitter “decides it is not going to participate in disseminating someone else’s message.” A newspaper, he analogises, is not obligated to publish the news release of a politician.
The more salient, and concerning conclusion to draw from the ban is the control of political content as it is shared on such private corporate platforms. That remains the troubling preserve of Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and company. Fashion, whim and being in the good books of the moment are their guiding lights. “It’s about the free market,” Jake Millar tells us in GQ, “not free speech.”
As it happens, that fashion and whim favours the Democrats, who are ecstatic that social media companies have finally discovered their censoring mettle. Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications director and director for communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign made no secret of the alignment of interests.
“It has not escaped my attention that the day social media companies decided there actually IS more they could do to police Trump’s destruction behavior was the same day they learned Democrats would chair all the congressional committees that oversee them.” Cosy times lie ahead.
Trenchant criticism of the ban has been marginalised as apologias for domestic terrorism and the rants of pro-Trump fanatics. More measured analysis has been, as always with assessing Trump, absent. The ACLU did state, if tepidly, that such moves were dangerous to expression. “It should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions.”
The reaction in other countries was also one of concern. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as she so often does, had a punt both ways. Her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, accepted that social media platforms “bear great responsibility for political communication not being poisoned by hatred, lies and by incitement to violence.” But freedom of opinion was “fundamental” and should only be tampered with in accordance “to the law and within the framework defined by legislators – not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms.” To that end, Merkel, he explained to reporters, found the decision to block the accounts of the US president “problematic”.
In Australia, government ministers have taken issue with Twitter’s erratic approach to hosting content. Why kick Trump off the platform, yet host offensive, doctored material by Chinese outlets featuring a bloodthirsty Australian soldier, knife pressed at the throat of an Afghan child? That image, fumed Michael McCormack in a one week spell as acting prime minister, “has not been taken down, and that is wrong.”
Australian government backbencher Dave Sharma, while agreeing in principle that banning Trump from the platform might have been appropriate given the facts, feared “the precedent of big tech making decisions about whose speech, and which remarks, are censored and suppressed.”
In the guise of Twitter, the US has found a political agent of interference of its own. It has become a gatekeeper curating material that is released to the public. Other big tech giants are doing the same, cleansing platforms of the unfashionably scurrilous. Move over, you foreign rascals; Silicon Valley is here to shape and determine the content of US politics and, if necessary, the politics of other countries.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Jobs Reset Summit report (October 2020) starts out with some flowery wording. You have to give it to them.
They have a way with meaningless niceties, hardly anybody beats them.
Here we go for the beginning:
“After years of growing income inequality, concerns about technology driven displacement of jobs, and rising societal discord globally, the combined health and economic shocks of 2020 have put economies into free fall, disrupted labor markets have fully revealed the inadequacies of our social contracts.”
“As we emerge from the crisis, we can proactively shape more inclusive, fair and sustainable economies, organizations, societies and workplaces. To do so, we must mobilize the best of human capabilities, technologies, innovative policies and market forces, in service of this new vision.”
“The World Economic Forum’s Job Reset Summit will serve as key milestone in supporting such a mobilization, working closely with partners around the world. The virtual meeting will bring together leaders from business, government, civil society, media and the broader public to shape the new agenda for growth, jobs, skills and equity.”
In my view, the Great Reset, which advances at warp speed, if we don’t stop it, will reduce the world to “modern” feudalism, one ruler and a herd of serfs that are provided with the necessary means to survive — and their brains have been converted (by the injections that go under the absurd name of vaccines), with electromagnetic gels, into “transhumans”. So, they / we can be manipulated electronically – which is one of the key purposes of 5G and soon to come 6G.
The latest of WEF’s dark and diabolical conundrums describes “Resetting the Jobs”. It emerged from a virtual conference from 20 to 23 October 2020, called “The Jobs Reset Summit”. This 3-minute video describes in a few brush strokes, what the world may look like after the Great Reset – jobwise. (Click Screen Below to View Video)
Nothing will stay the same. This may be the key and catch-phrase for the “Resetting of Jobs”; in fact for the entire Great Reset.
The video starts with Allen Blue, co-founder and Vice-President of Linkedin, dramatically declaring some truisms,
“Right now we are facing a crisis of international proportions. It’s a health care crisis, but it’s also an economic crisis. It’s going to have a long-term impact for us. And we are going to see that the biggest impact is actually going to be acceleration of inequality.”
Wow! We have been seeing inequality growing in the west at least for the past two centuries. Happy continuation!
Ms. Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO and President of GLAAD adds
“The systemic way that we have built is not holding up. The foundation is cracking.”
GLAAD was created in 1985, as an American non-governmental media monitoring organization, in protest against defamatory coverage of LGBT people. Its agenda has since extended to the entertainment industry and its portrayal of these groups.
Mr. Angel Gurría, Secretary General, OECD, elaborates:
“Our duties remain the same: The fact is that we should not leave anybody behind, again.”
The cream of the intellectual nobility has spoken. Wonderful, but so meaningless words, as the intro to the video so clearly shows; to impress and deviate the quick reader’s mind from what really is behind The Great Reset — and all the jobs that are going to be let down the drain for the benefit of the “4th Industrial Generation”, high-tech – digitization, robotization – all means to control humanity, or what we may have become by then “transhumans”, to the last breath.
Is that the future world we want? No – most certainly not. Not 99.999% of the world population. So, let’s not let it happen!
New technologies will require new jobs; Artificial Intelligence (AI), robots will take over many of the existing jobs, the economy will move faster and become “greener”. Green capitalism in the coming. The so-called New Green Deal. Its good old neoliberal capitalism painted green. Humans have to adapt.
The Job Reset doesn’t really explain how, except at one point honesty escaped them. For example, Henrietta Fore, Executive Director, UNICEF, says
“8 of 10 of the young people who live in low-income countries will have to become entrepreneurs. They are going to have to make jobs for themselves.”
And this is coming from UNICEF, the World UN agency created to protect children and young adults. What if the 8 out of 10 cannot create their own jobs, and / or do not become entrepreneurs – are they going to be “left behind” again, despite the good wishes of Mr. OECD?
Anybody who seriously reads the transcript, or listens to this warp-speed prepared video for something so important as the future jobs for the next generations to come, must think the WEF is nuts – not serious, another fear-instilling NGO. Yes, that’s what the WEF still is today, an NGO established in a lush suburb of Geneva, Switzerland. They call themselves an international organization, uniting the world’s business, culture and civil society. Unfortunately, that’s the power they – the WEF adherents – have been given by World Inc., the world’s Big Corporate Finance Structure.
The WEF calls the shots on the UN and all its sub-organizations, notably WHO (World Health Organization). Of course, the WEF also follows “higher orders”, like the leaders (sic) of the once-upon-a-time sovereign 193 UN member countries.
Create Your Own Jobs
Back to the UNICEF statement, “create your own job”, so to speak – there seems to be no other choice, isn’t there, than leaving most of the young behind, because most will not be able to create their own job. This bold, almost rude statement from UNICEF’s ED, is expanded by Andrea Zafirakou, a “Global Teacher Prize Winner” (sic – term used by WEF, certainly to aggrandize the importance of her statement). She says, new generations of children have to have “transferable skills…. resilience, mastery, collaboration, asking questions, why, how, when. This is what they need in order to thrive in any profession they choose.” – Do they have a choice to choose, when they are being marginalized by AI and robots?
To this, Eddie Ndopu, a UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) advocate, adds…
”The moment you incorporate marginalized segments of society, it changes product offering, it changes the way that we think about supply chains. When you cater to the margins, the positive externalities in economic terms, are pretty enormous.”
Does he know what he is talking about? – What does he mean by “externalities”? – Externalities is a love-term for neoliberal economists. When they do not want to account for negative values in their profit-driven projects and enterprises, they shove them off to the public sector, in other words to the tax-payers. Hélas, the WEF consists mostly of non-tax payers, of tax-excemptees. So, they have no clue who pays for an externality.
The Great Reset Explained
Bringing back some reality into the Great Reset, you must see the Great Reset explained, by Roy McCoy-Ward, who does an impressive job in presenting a rather objective analysis of what the WEF is and plans, as well as what the Great Reset is all about. The Great Reset (WEF) – explained (youtube below 27 min – 12 September 2020). Once we understand this diabolical plot, we are better prepared to face it off.
And face it off we will.
The Big Picture
Once we realize that covid and the WEF’s Great Reset go hand in hand, we are closer to the Big Picture, a picture that demonstrates that we are gradually and ever faster succumbing to a system that will bring us back to a modern, electronic, digitalized feudalism, where, We, the People – those of us that are left – may be just serfs of the masters, a small elite of super-rich globalists, otherwise called, the Deep State – let’s call them the Globalists. This term explains exactly what is the underlying reason of covid, and the Great Reset by the founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab and his Masters. It’s a rapid move towards ”A One World Order” (OWO) – with a One-World government and a super administration – over a drastically reduced population.
A massively reduced world population has been, and still is, an objective of Bill Gates and the Rockefeller clan– for at least the last 70 years. It folds nicely into the Great Reset plan. The idea has been promulgated for a long time – covertly and openly – by the Bilderberg Society, patronized by the Rockefellers, since it came into existence in 1954.
This sets the stage for the Agenda ID2020 vaccine project which is the most inhuman planned approach to a future for humanity.
“[ID2020 is] an electronic ID program that uses generalized vaccination as a platform for digital identity. The program harnesses existing birth registration and vaccination operations to provide newborns with a portable and persistent biometrically-linked digital identity. (Peter Koenig, March 2020)
It is the threshold for “transhumanity” on which the Great Reset bases its theory of a 4th Industrial Revolution: A totally digitized and robotized world in which transhumanity, i. e. transhumans would become a work force, a work commodity. Welcome to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
How do we become “transhumans”? – God forbid – but that’s the plan. The Covid vaccine is an instrument. According to:
“Microbiologist Dr Sucharit Bhakdi and leading lung specialist Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, …the composition of the Covid vaccine is “largely new and highly risky genetic engineering interventions in complex biological communication processes of our immune systems.”
The vaccines composition, they point out, includes fragments of different genetic information to be introduced into human cells as RNA or DNA. “Recombinant RNA, which is introduced into human cells, also alters the genetic processes and can very well be classified as genetic modification of the cells or the [human] organism.” (Julian Rose, December 15, 2020
The Implementation of the Great Reset
The WEF’s Great Reset feeds on the “Great Pretext” of Covid-19, which also by higher orders, was declared by WHO as a pandemic on March 11, 2019.
Worldwide cases on that day were 5095 and deaths 293 (WHO), hardly a case for a pandemic. Its rather a Plandemic – a purposefully planned pandemic that subsequently justified global lockdowns and the devastating destruction of the world economy, with disastrous human and social consequences – uncountable bankruptcies, hundreds of millions of unemployed – no income, famine, despair, suicide.
Based on these horrendous premises Klaus Schwab published the Great Reset in May 2020 – probably prepared long before – as the plandemic was planned by a “long hand”.
He described – and still does – this scenario of wanton economic destruction as “A Window of Opportunity” to rebuild the world, as a more equal, more just and more peaceful place. In October 2020, the WEF published a White Paper entitled “Resetting the Future of Work Agenda: Disruption and Renewal in a Post-Covid World” which is basically an implementation manual for the Great Reset.
The full Reset implementation agenda coincides with the UN agenda 21-30, meaning by the end of 2030, the Great Reset must be completed. Going by their plan, the Great Reset will have launched the Forth Industrial Generation – digitization of everything. When you go by their planned accomplishments, the most striking one is that the average transhuman serf will own nothing but is happy.
You may want to see a number of articles related to the Great Reset and the subsequently published White Paper; here:
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
“Something is happening here,
But you don’t know what it is,
Do you, Mr. Jones?”
— Bob Dylan
It’s hard.
Life today seems like a dream, doesn’t it? Surreal to the point where everything seems haunted and betwixt and between, or this against that, or that and this against us.
Something.
Or a Luis Buñuel film. The logic of the irrational. Surrealistic. A film made to draw us into an ongoing nightmare. Hitchcock with no resolution. Total weirdness, as Hunter Thompson said was coming before he blew his brains out. A life movie made to hypnotize in this darkening world where reality is created on screens, as Buñuel said of watching movies:
This kind of cinematographic hypnosis is no doubt due to the darkness of the theatre and to the rapidly changing scenes, lights, and camera movements, which weaken the spectator’s critical intelligence and exercise over him a kind of fascination.
Here we are in Weirdsville, USA where most people, whether of the left, right, or center, are hypnotized by the flickering screens.
That’s what movies do.
That’s what long planned psychological operations do.
That’s what digital technology allows corrupt rulers and the national security state with its Silicon Valley partners in crime to do.
We now live in a screen world where written words and logic are beside the point. Facts don’t matter. Personal physical experience doesn’t matter. Clear thinking doesn’t matter. Hysterical reactions are what matter. Manipulated emotions are what matter. Saying “Fuck You” is now de rigueur, as if that were the answer to an argument.
It’s all a movie now with the latest theatrical performance having been the January 6, 2021 stage show filmed at the U.S. Capital. A performance so obvious that it isn’t obvious for those hypnotized by propaganda, even when the movie clearly shows that the producers arranged for the “domestic terrorists” to be ushered into the Capital. They let the “Nazis” in on Dr. Goebbels orders. Thank God Almighty they were beaten back before they seized power in their Halloween costumes.
Now who could have given that order to the Capital and D.C. police, Secret Service, National Guard, and the vast array of militarized Homeland Security forces that knew well in advance of the January 6 demonstration?
Who gave the stand-down orders on September 11, 2001, events that were clearly anticipated and afterwards were described by so many as if they were a movie? Surreal. Dreamlike.
As with the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent anthrax attacks, the recently staged show at the Capital that the mainstream media laughingly call an attempted coup d’état will result in a new “Patriot Act” aimed at the new terrorists – domestic ones – i.e. anyone who dissents from the authoritarian crackdown long planned and underway; anyone who questions the vast new censorship and the assault on the First Amendment; anyone who questions the official narrative of Covid-19 and the lockdowns; anyone who suggests that there are linkages between these events, etc.
Who, after all, introduced the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act in 1995 that became the template for the Patriot Act in 2001 that was passed into law after September 11, 2001? None other than former Senator Joseph Biden. Remember Joe? He has a new plan.
Of course, the massive Patriot Act had been written well before that fateful September day and was ready to be implemented by a Senate vote of 98-1, the sole holdout being Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. In the House of Representatives the vote was 357-66.
For those familiar (or unfamiliar) with history and fabricated false flags, they might want also to meditate on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 that gave Lyndon Johnson his seal of approval to escalate the war against Vietnam that killed so many millions. The vote for that fake crisis was 416-0 in the House and 88-2 in the Senate.
In the words of Mark Twain:
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Harry Houdini, the magical performer who was able to escape from any trap, any nightmarish enclosure, any lockdown, once said, “It’s still an open question, however, as to what extent exposure really hurts a performer.”
The question has been answered. It doesn’t hurt at all, for phony events still mesmerize millions who are eager to suspend their disbelief for the sake of a sad strand of hope that their chosen leaders – whether Biden or Trump – are levelling with them and are not playing them for fools. To accept that Trump and Biden are scripted actors in a highly sophisticated reality TV movie is a bit of “reality” too hard to bear. Exposing them and their minions doesn’t hurt at all. There’s no business but show business.
Houdini knew well the tricks used to deceive a gullible audience hypnotized by theatrics. “A magician is only an actor,” he said, “an actor pretending to be a magician.” This a perfect description of the charlatans who serve as presidents of the United States.
Life today seems like a dream, doesn’t it?
“Will wonders ever cease,” said Houdini, as he closed his shows.
When I was a child I had a repetitive dream that I was trapped in a maze. Trying to escape, all I could hear as I tried desperately to find an exit was a droning sound. Droning without end. The only way I could escape the maze was to wake up – literally. But this dream would repeat for many years to the point where I realized my dreams were connected to my actual family and life in the U.S.A.
Then, when I was later in the Marines and felt imprisoned and was attempting to get out as a conscientious objector, the dream changed to being trapped in the Marines, or the prison I was expecting if they didn’t let me go. Even when I got out of the Marines and was not in prison, the dreams that I was continued.
It took me years to learn how to escape.
I mention such dreams since they seem to encapsulate the feelings so many people have today. A sense of being trapped in a senseless social nightmare. Prisoners. Lost in a horror movie like Kafka’s novel The Castle in which the protagonist K futilely seeks to gain access to the rulers who control the world from their castle but can never reach his goal.
But these are dreams and The Castle is fiction.
On a conscious level, however, many people continue to rationalize their grasp of what is going on in the United States as if what they take to be reality is not fiction. Trump supporters –despite what are seen by them as his betrayals when he said on January 7 that “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy….My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation.” – still cling to the belief that he is the man they believe in and was going to “clean the swamp” but was sabotaged by the “deep state.”
Biden supporters, driven by their obsessive hatred for Trump and the ongoing delusions that the Democratic Party, like the Republican, is not thoroughly corrupt, look forward to the Biden presidency and the new normal when he can “build back better.” For both groups true faith never dies. It’s very touching.
As I have written before, if the Democrats and the Republicans are at war as is often claimed, it is only over who gets the larger share of the spoils. Trump and Biden work for the same bosses, those I call the Umbrella People (those who own and run the country through their intelligence/military/media operatives), who produce and direct the movie that keeps so many Americans on the edge of their seats in the hope that their chosen good guy wins in the end.
It might seem as if I am wrong and that because the Democrats and their accomplices have spent years attempting to oust Trump through Russia-gate, impeachment, etc. that what seems true is true and Trump is simply a crazy aberration who somehow slipped through the net of establishment control to rule for four years. A Neo-Nazi billionaire who emerged from a TV screen and a golden tower high above the streets of New York.
This seems self-evident to the Democrats and the supporters of Joseph Biden, and even to many Republicans.
For Trump’s supporters, he seems to be a true Godsend, a real patriot who emerged out of political nowhere to restore America to its former greatness and deliver economic justice to the forgotten middle-Americans whose livelihoods have been devastated by neo-liberal economic policies and the outsourcing of jobs.
Two diametrically opposed perspectives.
But if that is so, why, despite Trump and Biden’s superficial differences – and Obama’s, Hillary Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s for that matter – have the super-rich gotten richer and richer over the decades and the war on terror continued as the military budget has increased each year and the armament industries and the Wall Street crooks continued to rake in the money at the expense of everyone else? These are a few facts that can’t be disputed. There are many more. So what’s changed under Trump? We are talking about nuances, small changes. A clown with a big mouth versus traditional, “dignified” con men.
Trump’s followers were betrayed the day he was sworn in, as Biden’s will be shortly unless they support a crackdown on civil rights, the squelching of the First Amendment, and laws against dissent under the aegis of a war against domestic terrorism.
I’m afraid that is so. Censorship of dissent that is happening now will increase dramatically under the Biden administration.
Now we have the “insurrection,” also known as an attempted “coup d’état,” with barbarians breaching the gates of the sacred abode of the politicians of both parties who have supported bloody U.S. coups throughout the world for the past seventy plus years. Here is another example of history beginning as tragedy and ending as farce.
But who is laughing?
If you were writing this script as part of long-term planning, and average people were getting disgusted from decades of being screwed and were sick of politicians and their lying ways, wouldn’t you stop the reruns and create a new show?
Come on, this is Hollywood where creative showmen can dazzle our minds with plots so twisted that when you leave the theater you keep wondering what it was all about and arguing with your friends about the ending. So create a throwback film where the good guy versus the bad guy was seemingly very clear, and while the system ground on, people would be at each other’s throats over the obvious differences, even while they were fabricated or were minor. This being the simple and successful age-old strategy of divide and conquer
I realize that it is very hard for many to entertain the thought that Trump and Biden are not arch-enemies but are players in a spectacle created to confound at the deepest psychological levels. I am not arguing that the Democrats didn’t want Hillary Clinton to win in 2016. I am saying they knew Trump was a better opponent, not only because they could probably defeat him and garner more of the spoils, but because if he possibly won he was easily controlled because he was compromised. By whom? Not the Democrats, but the “Deep State” forces that control Hillary Clinton and all the presidents. A compromised and corrupt lot.
The Democrats and Republicans were not in charge in 2016 or in 2020. Their bosses were. The Umbrella people. Biden will carry out their orders, and while everyone will conveniently forget what actually happened during Trump’s tenure, as I previously mentioned, they will only remember how the Democrats “tried” to oust this man in the black hat, while Biden will carry on Trump’s legacy with minor changes and a lot of PR. He will seem like a breath of fresh air as he continues and expands the toxic policies of all presidents. So it goes.
Throughout these recent days that the corporate mainstream media have devoted to this Trump/Biden saga, Julian Assange, a truth teller if ever there were one, remains tortured and locked up in an English high-security prison cell. His plight has been a minor note at best for the corporate media that is focused on the American “coup d’état.” The spectacle rolls on as an innocent journalist who exposed the vast murderous crimes of the American government is left to slowly die in a horrible prison cell. A man who, if free, could report the truth of this current charade and expose the bloody underside of this magic show.
Long ago in Russia, another dissident, Fyodor Dostoevsky, was also sentenced on trumped up charges to prison and exile in Siberia for being “freethinking” and a socialist enemy of the state. When he was finally released, he wrote a novel that was published in 1866. It was Crimeand Punishment, a masterpiece about a man named Rodian Romanovich Raskolnikov who, like Dostoevsky, is sentenced to exile and imprisonment in Siberia. In Raskolnikov’s case, it was for killing an old woman pawnbroker to see if he was “above the common ruck.” The story explores Raskolnikov’s dual consciousness and the right to murder; prideful intellect versus compassion; rationalism versus spiritual values; freedom versus determinism; the individual versus the state.
Like Nietzsche twenty years later, Dostoevsky sent out a warning long ago about the terrifying consequences that would follow in the wake of certain forms of thinking that would result in nihilism. To be “above the common ruck” and murder at will, to play with people as though they were what Raskolnikov calls the woman he murders – “louses,” to create divided minds in a game of social schizophrenia through antitheses that conceal the magician’s devious truths.
At the end of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, while still in Siberian prison exile, feels that he, like Lazarus, has been raised from the dead. He realizes that there is a solution to his split mind and that he has found it as he transitions “from one world into another…his initiation into a new, unknown life.”
But such a resolution that I will not divulge is preceded by a very strange dream, one that rings a bell today when life seems like a dream with something happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
When he [Raskolnikov] was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible strange new plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. Everyone was to be destroyed except a few chosen ones. Some sort of new microbe was attacking people’s bodies, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became instantly furious and mad. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples were driven mad by the infection. Everyone was excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know who to blame, who to justify….The alarm bells kept ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew….The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.
Have you?
*
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.
In 1624, English poet John Donne penned his famous poem ‘No Man Is an Island’, sublimely evoking the reality of human unity: ‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.’ Therefore, he concluded his poem, ‘never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.’
This report does two things.
First, in the hope of generating greater consideration of the human condition and the state of the planet, I have presented in straightforward language and point form, a reasonable summary of the nature and extent of our predicament as well as citing the relevant scientific and/or other evidence that explains each problem in more detail.
And second, the article outlines a powerful series of actions and strategies that individuals as well as community groups, neighborhoods and action groups can take as part of a global effort to restore agency to human individuals as well as to fight to avert human extinction.
Introduction
Tragically, in 2020, the bell tolled for all of humanity, in more ways than one, as we suffered the greatest political, economic, social and environmental upheaval in human history when the global elite initiated its long-planned coup – presented by the World Economic Forum as ‘The Great Reset’ – to take complete control of the entire human population in order to reduce it to techno-slavery in service of elite ends.
and watch the interview of Catherine Austin Fitts for the film ‘Planet Lockdown’.
This was done under cover of the threat supposedly posed by a virus – labeled SARS-CoV-2 – which has not been scientifically demonstrated to exist, as a lengthening list of scholars were pointing out throughout the year.
Unfortunately but as planned, the elite-directed response to the so-called ‘pandemic’ subsequently declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, caused virtually all national governments to immediately shut down their national economies, imprison their populations in their homes (variously under ‘lockdown’, quarantine and curfew policies) and implement other politically, socially, economically and environmentally destructive practices which are killing millions of people, inflicting enormous suffering on billions more, and accelerating the four primary paths to human extinction: nuclear war, biodiversity collapse, the deployment of 5G and the climate catastrophe.
Of course, there are other possible paths to human extinction in the near term, particularly when considered in conjunction with the four threats just mentioned. These include the cascading impacts triggered by destruction of the Amazon rainforest (which is now imminent) particularly given its critical role in the global hydrological cycle, the rapidly spreading radioactive contamination of Earth, and geoengineering for military purposes (which has been occurring for decades and continues).
Far worse, however, is the path to extinction that looms before us when we consider the impact of all seven of these paths in combination with the vast range of other threats noted below.
These interrelated threats have generated a shocking series of ‘points of no return’ (‘tipping points’) that we have already crossed, the mutually reinforcing set of negative feedback loops that we have already triggered (and which we will continue to trigger) which cannot be reversed in the short-term, as well as the ongoing synergistic impact of the various ‘extinction drivers’ (such as ongoing extinctions because dependent species have lost their resource species) we have set in motion and which cannot be halted irrespective of any remedial action we might take. Hence, taking into account all of the above factors, the prospects of averting human extinction are now remote, at best.
One acknowledgment of the depth of our crisis, which takes into account just two variables and preceded declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic precipitating the elite coup putting us on the path to technotyranny, was the fact that the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was moved to 100 seconds to midnight in January 2020, the closest it has ever been to ‘doomsday’ (and more severe than both the previous year and in 1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclear weapon matching the US capacity and raising the spectre of nuclear war).
Of course, as implied above, information about the deeper strands of what is taking place and strategies to address these, only have utility in one context. They depend, fundamentally, on how one perceives what is happening and this is shaped by one’s perception of how the world in which we live actually works. If, on the one hand, someone is inclined to perceive the world as it has been traditionally presented via elite agents, then the ‘virus’ is a serious threat to individual lives for the reasons presented by governments and the corporate media and we must respond as directed.
If, on the other hand, someone has a critique of the global elite and the way in which current events are just the latest manoeuver in a centuries-long series of events designed to consolidate elite control at the expense of the rest of us, then it is the deeper agenda behind what is happening that is the focus of attention.
Given that the evidence in support of the latter position is overwhelming, and that the forces arrayed against us are very powerful, humanity faces the greatest challenge to its existence since Homo sapiens first walked the Earth.
So let me identify some of the more crucial backward steps humanity took during 2020 and what we can do about them.
Some Key Lowlights of 2020
As briefly reported above, the global elite implemented its long-planned coup to take complete control of human life in order to eliminate or marginalize a substantial proportion of the population while perverting the identity and will of the rest of us to serve elite ends. While there is significant resistance to this coup, strategic resistance to it in any meaningful form is yet to emerge.
Given that most people have fallen victim to the elite propaganda – see
and are also not considering the massive ‘collateral damage’ that is taking place under cover of Covid-19, the resistance that is occurring (dismissed, one way or another, by those supporting the elite coup) remains insufficient if humanity is to successfully defend human identity, freedom, dignity and volition and, even more vitally, to avert our own extinction.
As James Corbett noted in a recent video:
‘If you are advocating for lockdowns, you are complicit in tearing families apart. You are complicit in inflicting untold suffering on millions of people around the world. You are complicit in casting the poorest and most vulnerable in our societies into even further grinding poverty. You are complicit in murder.’
To highlight just a few of the severe economic impacts, official responses supposedly to Covid-19 have vastly exacerbated poverty and starvation (leading to millions of deaths), destroyed millions of small businesses, dramatically increased unemployment, enabled a monumental wealth transfer from poor to rich (with the wealth of US billionaires increasing by nearly a trillion dollars during the year, and the world’s 2,189 billionaires – obviously excluding the immensely wealthier Rothschilds and Rockefellers – amassing fortunes totaling around $US10.2 trillion) and is leading to the greatest and most rapid rise in homelessness in world history.
Key threats posed by the elite coup include the fact that, if it comes to pass, the ‘compulsory’ vaccination along with the digital certificate that will go with it will leave us as nothing more than robotized organisms monitored and controlled by the elite’s agents.
Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.
Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems to be fueled by a conviction to save the world with technology.
But even more importantly, Professor Vandana Shiva has evocatively explained why the world patent granted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to Microsoft on 26 March 2020 titled ‘1. WO2020060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data’, has given Microsoft (that is, Bill Gates) extraordinary power over our lives and is ‘robbing us of our deep humanity’. In essence:
‘The patent is dramatically changing the meaning of being human…. It is redefining us as ‘mines’ for data – robbing us of our autonomy, our sovereignty, and control over our bodies and minds…. It is erasing our humanity – as sovereign, living beings, spiritual, conscious, intelligent beings, making our decisions and choices with wisdom and ethical values about the impacts of our actions on the natural and social world of which we are a part; and to which we are inextricably related. We are being reduced to being ‘users’ of tasks assigned to us by the extractive digital mega machine. A ‘user’ is a consumer without choice in the digital empire. Human creativity and consciousness disappear in the world imagined in #patent060606.’ See ‘My Earth Journey in defence of Biodiversity, Life and Freedom over 5 decades’.
Separately from this, the adverse physical and psychological health impacts of official responses to Covid-19 have been heavily documented as well, including by the United Nations and World Health Organization, despite their complicity in the coup. For example, there has been a dramatic increase in the violence inflicted within the family home, especially by men and women against children – see ‘Why Violence?’ – and by the more usually acknowledged men against women.
In addition, there has been official acknowledgment of the elevated levels and rates of fear (usually labeled ‘stress’ or ‘anxiety’) and the increased levels of loneliness, depression, harmful alcohol and drug use, and self-harm along with suicides – see ‘Mental health and COVID-19’ – although they have been officially underestimated to conceal the true extent of the harm being done which was, of course, planned as part of the strategy to preoccupy the population and weaken resistance to the coup.
In some cases below, I have made reference to how the elite-generated responses to the non-existent virus and fake pandemic have exacerbated existing adverse circumstances and, for example, led to the ‘sitting duck’ murder of indigenous activists trapped in their homes by lockdown restrictions.
The global elite, using key elite fora such as the Group of 30, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum, and despite much rhetoric to the contrary, continued to plan, generate and exacerbate the many ongoing wars, deepening exploitation within the global economy, climate and environmental destruction, and the killing and exploitation of fellow human beings in a multitude of contexts, in pursuit of greater elite profit, power and privilege. See, for example, ‘Who Is Really in Control of US Foreign Policy?’, Giants: The Global Power Elite and ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.
International organizations (such as the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and national governments and corporations used military forces, legal systems, police forces and prison systems – see ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’ – around the world to serve the global elite by defending its interests against the bulk of the human population, including those individuals and organizations courageous enough to challenge elite profit, power and privilege who are being killed in record numbers. (See more in point 39 below).
$US1.92 trillion was officially spent worldwide on military weapons to kill fellow human beings and other lifeforms, and to destroy the biosphere. This is the highest official (because the figures are taken from ‘open sources’) annual military expenditure ever recorded and the third consecutive year in which an increase occurred. Spending $732 billion, the United States accounted for more than one-third of global military expenditure. See ‘SIPRI Yearbook 2020: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security; Summary’.
In addition to direct military spending, national governments spent billions more on such items as interest on national debt accrued through military expenditure, and medical, hospital, housing and other costs associated with rehabilitation of injured, and support of incapacitated, veterans.
Apart from military spending, weapons transfers worldwide remained high, key weapons control agreements such as that to limit strategic nuclear weapons (‘New START’) were rapidly approaching expiry with attempts to renew them stalled by the US, and there were many other regional and national military conflicts including new ones such as those in Nagorno-Karabakh and Ethiopia.
In relation to the military spending of the United States, as noted previously, so out-of-control is this spending that the US government has now spent at least $US21trillion on its military in the past 20 years for which it cannot even account! That’s right, $US1trillion each year above the official US national budget for killing is ‘lost’.
There has been no progress reported in accounting for this ‘lost’ expenditure during the past year.
Under the direction of the global elite (as explained above), the United States government and its NATO allies continued their perpetual war across the planet wreaking devastation on many countries and regions, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, at staggering cost in terms of civilian and military lives lost, refugees displaced, national heritage destroyed, financial expenditure and environmental damage. See, for example,
As a result, whether in the US-sponsored and supplied Saudi Arabian war against Yemen where the UNHCR reports ‘Yemen is facing a humanitarian catastrophe…. Civilians bear the brunt of the crisis, with 22.2 million Yemenis now in need of humanitarian assistance’ –
– the complete dismemberment of Libya as a result of NATO’s bombing of that country and the subsequent assassination of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 – see ‘Endless War and Chaos in Libya’
– or the ongoing US occupation of Syrian territory and control of its resources
– see ‘Endless US Rape, Occupation and Plunder of Syria’ – the United States and its NATO allies have continued their efforts to destroy entire countries at staggering cost to their populations and environments, not because these countries posed a threat to security outside their borders but in order to maintain geopolitical control and to facilitate the theft of their resources (including oil) at great profit to the global elite.
Moreover, of course, the perpetually-profitable perpetual war, by definition, has no end. But the elite has no problem frightening most people into supporting its perpetual wars using manufactured excuses that are dutifully promulgated by its corporate media. And, with a gullibly terrified human population disinclined to question authority, this isn’t a problem.
The same unconvincing formula invariably works each time. For a fuller and insightful explanation of this point, see Edward Curtin’s article ‘The war hoax redux’.
Additional costs associated with war and military spending include the simple fact that by deliberately exaggerating the risk posed by the threat of war, additional expenditure is endlessly ‘justified’ to an unsuspecting and gullible public – see
– they impose a staggering cost on the global environment –
see ‘The Ecological Impact of Militarism’ – and they destroy human rights and freedoms including, obviously, the right to life of those individuals killed.
Additional dangers associated with perpetual war by the US include the risk of accidental nuclear war, nuclear war triggered by a cyber attack –
and ‘simply’ that endless confrontation with, and provocation of, other major powers Russia and China will, one day, explode into a high-tech ‘world’ war.
Not content with the devastating impact of the military violence it is inflicting already, during 2020 the global elite continued to plan and develop ways to cause more destruction in future. This included ongoing work by US military agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), accelerated by initiatives in relation to the elite coup, to advance mind-controlled weapons – see ‘The Government Is Serious About Creating Mind-Controlled Weapons’ – autonomous systems and artificial intelligence technologies that will undermine nuclear deterrence and increase the likelihood of nuclear escalation – see ‘A Stable Nuclear Future? The Impact of Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence’ – and further development by the United States to create its Space Force, a sixth branch of the US military forces, just three manifestations of this. See ‘The Big Push for Nukes in Space’. In addition, DARPA continues to sponsor research on ‘extinction gene drive’ technology for use against an ‘enemy’ race as explained in item 35 below.
In its turn, Russian military advances include development and deployment of a hypersonic weapon that travels at Mach 27 and which makes the US missile defense installations in Europe ‘obsolete’.
And, according to US sources, China now has the largest navy in the world while expanding its arsenal of ground-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles and planning to double its nuclear arsenal.
But other initiatives receiving renewed attention – ‘hypervelocity guns, particle beams and laser weapons onboard orbiting battle platforms with onboard nuclear reactors or “super” plutonium systems providing the power for the weapons’ – also enhance the threat that ‘Modern society would go dark’ in the words of Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Why? Because ‘any war in space would be the one and only. By destroying satellites in space massive amounts of space debris would be created that would cause a cascading effect and even the billion-dollar International Space Station would likely be broken into tiny bits. So much space junk would be created… that we’d never be able to get a rocket off the planet again because of the minefield of debris orbiting the Earth at 15,000 mph’.
Of course, technological ‘advances’ in weaponry reflect retrograde steps in policy with the US Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) – which includes 20 B-2 stealth bombers, 76 B-52 bombers and 450 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles together capable of delivering thousands of nuclear warheads – along with the U.S. Navy’s submarine-launched Trident ballistic missiles, now ‘capable of extinguishing essentially all life on Earth within a matter of hours.’
Following the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002 and after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the ‘Iran nuclear deal’) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (which limited the deployment of intermediate range nuclear weapons) in 2018, the US government further and unilaterally signaled its intention to dismantle the little that remained of attempts during the Cold War and since that time to contain the threat of nuclear war by further acting in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 – see ‘Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies’ and ‘US Weaponizing Space in Bid to Launch Arms Race’ – and demonstrating its disinterest in extending New START: the sole remaining restraint on U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals that caps deployed offensive strategic nuclear weapons to no more than 1,550 each. See ‘US, Russia Trade Blame for Failed New START Negotiations’. There is some prospect that the incoming US president will seek to renew the treaty which expires on 5 February 2021.
Another substantial proportion of global private financial wealth – conservatively estimated by the Tax Justice Network in 2010 to already total between $US21 and $US32 trillion – has been invested virtually tax-free through the world’s still-expanding black hole of more than 80 ‘offshore’ tax havens (such as the City of London Corporation, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Nauru, St. Kitts, Antigua, Tortola, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Monaco, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein).
Tax havens, or ‘secrecy jurisdictions’, are locations around the world where wealthy individuals, criminals and terrorists, as well as governments and government agencies (such as the CIA), banks, corporations, hedge funds, international organizations (such as the Vatican) and crime syndicates (such as the Mafia), can stash their money so that they can avoid laws, regulation and oversight and, very often, evade tax.
‘Countries are losing over $427 billion in tax each year to international corporate tax abuse and private tax evasion.’ $245 billion is lost through corporate tax abuse and $182 billion is lost as wealthy individuals evade tax. While wealthier countries lost more tax it was only equal to 8% of their annual health budgets; for lower income countries the losses were equal to more than half their health budgets.
As the latest report of the Tax Justice Network ‘The State of Tax Justice 2020’ concluded: ‘A global tax system that loses over $427 billion a year isn’t a broken system, it’s a system programmed to fail.’
Controlled by the global elite, Wall Street and other major banks manage this monstrous diversion of wealth under Government protection. (This means that any effort to contain this diversion by introducing robustly-enforced tax laws, including wealth and excess taxes, are thwarted.) ‘Their business is fraud and grand theft.’ But tax havens offer more than tax avoidance. ‘Almost anything goes on.’ It includes ‘bribery, illegal gambling, money laundering, human and sex trafficking, arms dealing, toxic waste dumping, conflict diamonds and endangered species trafficking, bootlegged software, and endless other lawless practices.’
Moreover, the losses noted above are just financial wealth. Additionally, a large share of the real estate, yachts, racehorses, gold bricks and many other assets that count as non-financial wealth are also owned via offshore structures that make it impossible to identify their owners.
The world’s major corporations continued to inflict enormous ongoing violence (in a myriad of ways) in their pursuit of endless profit at the expense of living beings (human and otherwise) and Earth’s biosphere by producing and marketing a wide range of life-destroying products ranging from nuclear weapons and nuclear power to fossil fuels, junk food, pharmaceutical drugs (including health-destroying and sometimes life-destroying vaccinations: see, for example,‘Vaxxed-Unvaxxed – The Science’), synthetic poisons and genetically mutilated organisms (GMOs).
These corporations include the following: weapons manufacturers, major banks and their ‘industry groups’ like the International Monetary Conference, asset management firms, investment companies, financial services companies, fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas) corporations, technology corporations, media corporations, major marketing and public relations corporations, agrochemical (pesticides, seeds, fertilizers) giants, pharmaceutical corporations (with their handmaidens in the medical and psychiatric industries:
‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’), biotechnology (genetic mutilation) corporations, mining corporations, nuclear power corporations, food multinationals and water corporations.
More than two billion people continued to live under military occupation (such as the people of Kashmir, Kurdistan, Palestine, Tibet, West Papua and Western Sahara), dictatorship (such as the people of Cambodia, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, North Korea and Saudi Arabia) or threat of genocidal assault (such as the Rohingya of Myanmar) invariably with the global elite sponsoring the oppressive local elite that exercises power. For details of just one of a great many examples, see ‘500 Years is Long Enough! Human Depravity in the Congo’.
36,000,000 human beings (mainly in Africa, Asia and Central/South America) were starved to death in 2020. That is, more than one person each second died because they did not have enough eat. See ‘How Many People Die from Hunger Each Year’.
Are we serious about ending these totally unnecessary deaths? Not even remotely, as thoughtfully explained by Professor George Kent in his report as deputy editor of World Nutrition. See ‘Are We Serious About Ending Hunger?’
As Professor Kent notes: currently, around the world, ‘around 800 million people suffer from hunger’ and that ‘global efforts to end hunger have not been serious’: There has been ‘no substantial commitment of resources, no management group to control the process, no realistic timeline, and no means for mid-course corrections on the way to the goal. There [have been] no contracts with agencies that would work toward achievement of the goal…. hoping for the end of hunger won’t work. Hope is not a strategy.’ Moreover, ‘The UN system offers little more than vague aspirations.’
‘Over the decades, the stated global goal of ending hunger was not achieved, repeatedly. Instead of strengthening the effort, the response has been to reduce the aspirations. That is a clear indicator of the lack of seriousness.’
By one estimate: ‘World hunger can be eliminated with an additional $265 billion per year.’ See ‘How Many People Die from Hunger Each Year’. That is, redirecting 13.8% of official current military spending would end world hunger and starvation on Earth.
But complicated by official responses to Covid-19 (that is, the elite coup), earlier in the year World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley warned of one outcome:
If we don’t prepare and act now to secure access, to avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade, we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months… our analysis shows that 300,000 people could starve to death every single day over a three-month period. See ‘WFP chief warns of “hunger pandemic” as Global Food Crises Report launched’.
Beyond this, food availability for many vulnerable people was exacerbated by locust infestations in parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia as yet another manifestation of ongoing climate and environmental degradation.
While this crisis was partly averted, it was done at great cost to the environment: at least 834,000 litres of pesticide and 12,675kg of bio-pesticide were procured and administered through the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) alone.
Of course, spraying pesticides on ‘more than 1.3 million hectares of locust infestations… across ten countries this year’ didn’t solve the problem with the threat to ‘agricultural livelihoods and the food security of millions of people’ simply re-emerging late in the year.
This was inevitable as humans endlessly try to ‘patch up’ symptoms of damage to the environment and climate that has been inflicted over decades and now requires integrated solutions that violate the endless demand for corporate profit.
18,250,000 children were killed by adults in wars, by starving them to death, by denying them clean drinking water, as a result of gun deaths, and in a large variety of other ways.
8,000,000 children were trafficked into sexual slavery; executed in sacrificial killings after being kidnapped; bred to be sold as a ‘cash crop’ for sexual violation, to produce child pornography (‘kiddie porn’) and ‘snuff’ movies (in which children are killed during the filming); ritually tortured and murdered as well as raped by dogs trained for the purpose. See ‘Humanity’s “Dirty Little Secret”: Starving, Enslaving, Raping, Torturing and Killing our Children’.
Hundreds of thousands of individuals were kidnapped or tricked into slavery, which now denies 46,000,000 human beings (more than at any time in human history) the right to live the life of their choice, condemning many individuals – especially women and children – to lives of sexual slavery (perhaps in a forced ‘marriage’), forced labor or as child soldiers. Needless to say, the global elite continues to expand this highly profitable business while its compliant governments do no more than mouth an occasional objection to the practice while doing nothing effective to actually end it, as is patently evident following disclosures about the involvement of high-profile public figures and major industries in the slave trade.
8,700,000 people were displaced by war, persecution or famine. There are now 79,500,000 people – 1% of the world population – who have been forcibly displaced worldwide and remain precariously unsettled, usually in adverse circumstances. 40% of those who are displaced are children, and more than 4,000,000 displaced people are stateless. 17 people in the world are forcibly displaced every minute. Notably, official responses to the supposed ‘pandemic’ in 2020 seriously exacerbated the adverse circumstances of displaced people further reducing their capacity to meet basic needs. See ‘Figures at a Glance’ and ‘UNHCR releases supplementary COVID-19 appeal to meet exceptional refugee needs in 2021’.
Millions of people were made homeless in their own country as a result of war, persecution, ‘natural’ disasters (many of which, including hurricanes/cyclones and wildfires, were actually generated by dysfunctional human behavior rather than nature), internal conflict, poverty or as a result of elite-driven national economic policies. The last time a global survey was attempted – by the United Nations back in 2005 – an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. In addition, as many as 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing (living in slums, for example). See ‘Global Homelessness Statistics’.
Highlighting the unheralded biodiversity crisis on Earth, as a result of habitat destruction and degradation as well as a multitude of other threats, 73,000 species of life (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles and microbes) on Earth were driven to extinction with the worldwide loss of many of these species now at catastrophic levels. Tragically, many additional species are now trapped in a feedback loop which will inevitably precipitate their extinction as well because of the way in which ‘co-extinctions’, ‘localized extinctions’ and ‘extinction cascades’ work once initiated and as has already occurred in almost all ecosystem contexts. See the (so far) six-part series ‘Our Vanishing World’. Have you seen a flock of birds of any size recently? A butterfly?
Separately from species extinctions, Earth continued to experience ‘a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event.’ Moreover, local population extinctions ‘are orders of magnitude more frequent than species extinctions. Population extinctions, however, are a prelude to species extinctions, so Earth’s sixth mass extinction episode has proceeded further than most assume.’ See ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines’ and ‘Our Vanishing World: Wildlife’.
Wildlife trafficking, worth up to $20 billion in 2020, is pushing many endangered species to the brink of extinction. Illegal wildlife products include jewelry, traditional medicine, clothing, furniture, and souvenirs, as well as some exotic pets, most of which are sold to unaware/unconcerned consumers in the West although China is heavily implicated too. For just one example: every 15 minutes an elephant is killed for its tusks. See Stop Wildlife Trafficking.
6.5 million hectares of pristine forest were cut or burnt down for purposes such as the following: acquiring timbers used in construction, clearing land to establish cattle farms so that many people can eat cheap hamburgers, clearing land to establish palm oil plantations so that many people can eat processed (including junk) foods based on this oil, clearing land to establish palm oil and soybean plantations so that some people can delude themselves that they are using a ‘green biofuel’ in their car (when, in fact, these fuels generate a far greater carbon footprint than fossil fuels), mining (much of it illegal) for a variety of minerals (such as gold, silver, copper, coltan, cassiterite and diamonds), logging to produce woodchips so that some people can buy cheap paper (including cheap toilet paper), oil drilling, dam construction, tourism and clothing. Separately from this, the climate catastrophe is destroying forests, as are fires.
One outcome of this destruction is that 40,000 tropical tree species are now threatened with extinction. In addition, rainforest destruction is also the key driver of species extinctions globally with one million species of life on Earth threatened with extinction, as reported in the recent
Another outcome is that ‘the precious Amazon is teetering on the edge of functional destruction and, with it, so are we’. How long do we have? ‘The tipping point is here, it is now.’ Professor Thomas E. Lovejoy and his fellow researcher Carlos Nobre elaborate this point: ‘Bluntly put, the Amazon not only cannot withstand further deforestation but also now requires rebuilding as the underpinning base of the hydrological cycle if the Amazon is to continue to serve as a flywheel of continental climate for the planet and an essential part of the global carbon cycle.’
Vast quantities of soil were washed away as we destroyed the rainforests, and enormous quantities of both inorganic constituents (such as heavy metals like cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc) and organic pollutants (particularly synthetic chemicals in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides) were dumped into the soil as well, thus reducing its nutrients and killing the microbes and earthworms within it. We also contaminated enormous quantities of soil with radioactive waste. See Soil-net, ‘Glyphosate effects on soil rhizosphere-associated bacterial communities’ and ‘Disposing of Nuclear Waste is a Challenge for Humanity’.
To briefly elaborate the evidence in relation to earthworms: Given ‘recent reports of critical declines of microbes, plants, insects and other invertebrates, birds and other vertebrates, the situation pertaining to neglected earthworms’ was evaluated in an extensive investigation recently undertaken by Robert J. Blakemore. His research demonstrated an 83.3 percent decline in earthworms in agrichemical farms – that is, those that use pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers – compared with farms utilizing organic methods. Why? Because ‘it is impossible to replace or artificially engineer the myriad beneficial processes and services freely provided by earthworms’ which includes extensive burrows in pastures enriched with soil organic matter that allow ingress of air & water and provide living space for other soil organisms. Moreover, given that ecological services overall have been given a median value of US$135 trillion per year, which is almost double the global economic GDP of around $75 trillion –
Given that this multifaceted destruction of the soil fundamentally threatens the global grain supply, when the ability to grow, store and distribute grains at scale is a defining element of civilization, as Professor Guy McPherson eloquently explains it: ‘A significant decline in grain harvest will surely drive this version of civilization to the abyss and beyond.’
When nuclear power plants were first being constructed, they were envisaged to have a maximum lifespan of 40 years because the radioactive emissions made the metal parts of the plant brittle causing safety problems. However, Professor Karl Grossman explains, with the passage of time the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ‘has extended the operating licenses of nuclear power plants from 40 years to 60 years and then 80 years, and is now considering 100 years’. Crazy? As Robert Alvarez notes: It is ‘an act of desperation in response to the collapse of the nuclear program in this country and the rest of the world’. See ‘Inviting Nuclear Disaster’.
Moreover, apart from their obvious problems as mentioned above and illustrated in the next item below as well, nuclear power plants are vulnerable to cyber attack too.
But the challenges to be overcome in safely handling and, ultimately, safely storing the radiation hazards (such as the three melted nuclear reactors and the spent fuel rods) and the radioactive waste from the Fukushima disaster are monumental, as touched on in this article outlining the 40-year plan that the Japanese government hopes will delude us into believing will deal with the many components of this perpetual radioactive nightmare.
In addition, one critical legacy of the US military’s 67 secretive and lethal nuclear weapons tests on the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 is the ‘eternally’ radioactive garbage left behind and now leaking into the Pacific Ocean.
Despite largely successful efforts by the elite-controlled IPCC to delude people into believing that the global mean temperature has increased by only 1°C, in fact, since the pre-industrial era (prior to 1750) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have already caused the global temperature to rise by more than 2°C above this baseline (in February 2020). This occurred despite the Paris climate agreement in 2015 when politicians pledged to hold the global temperature rise to well below 2°C above the pre-industrial level and pledged to try to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above this level. See ‘2°C crossed’.
Among a lengthy list of adverse outcomes, this has caused the melting of Arctic permafrost and undersea methane ice clathrates resulting in an incalculable quantity of methane (CH₄) being uncontrollably released into the atmosphere, including during 2020, with the quantity being released getting ever closer to ‘exploding’. According to one study, ‘Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may be catastrophic, but the release of methane from hydrate may be apocalyptic.’
Highlighting some other manifestations in 2020 of this accelerating climate catastrophe, Dr Jeff Masters and Dana Nuccitelli noted that it was the wildest Atlantic hurricane season on record (doubling the average), an ‘apocalyptic wildfire season’ (that ran all year), that the most expensive disaster was a $US32billion flood in China, and that 2020 is likely to be the hottest year in human history.
Complicating efforts to tackle this catastrophe are factors not normally considered impacting the climate, such as the jetwash from aircraft. According to Wesley Schouw and Professor Gunter Pauli, the climate catastrophe ‘is also driven by shifts in the patterns of global atmospheric circulation which are influenced by persistent, large-scale vortices caused by the wake turbulence left by commercial air traffic. Because this traffic is highly concentrated along the most frequently traveled routes, the vortices aircraft create have transformed into semi-permanent atmospheric circulation which have widespread effects on how the atmosphere traps and releases heat. It is also possible that these changes alter the loss of water from the atmosphere. This would endanger all life on earth, not just the human population.’
Anyway, the combined impact of all drivers of the climate catastrophe have led to a situation in which humans in particular locations are already being increasingly forced to contend with heat and humidity beyond human tolerance. This is precipitating increasing levels of heat-induced stress, organ failure and therefore deaths, contrary to models indicating that such impacts lie decades in the future.
Tragically, however, as noted by Dr Andrew Glikson, with climate projections now ‘disturbingly consistent’ in indicating a ‘shift in state of the climate toward +4 degrees and even +6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’, climate scientists are caught in a quandary: ‘In private conversations, many scientists express far greater concern at the trend of global warming than they do in public. However, faced with social and psychological barriers, as well as threats of losing positions and jobs, in business, public service and academia, a majority keeps silent.’ This is especially tragic, given that ‘The pace of current global warming exceeds those of the last 2.6 million years by an order of magnitude, with calamitous consequences for biological systems.’
And noting that ‘We currently occupy the warmest Earth with Homo sapiens present beyond the much-vaunted 2°C “guardrail” above the 1750 baseline’, Professor Guy McPherson reports that ‘There is no known way to stabilize or reduce the global-average temperature of Earth.’ He goes on to describe ‘a few means by which Earth could lose all habitat for Homo sapiens, a process that is already under way’. And concludes that ‘Human extinction likely was triggered when Earth exceeded 2°C above the 1750 baseline.’
Moreover, given ill-informed elite responses to the fake pandemic, the extinction of all life on Earth (not just human life) may have already been precipitated: ‘The rapidity of change associated with loss of aerosol masking [due to the industrial shutdown] precludes retention of habitat for human animals anywhere on Earth. In addition, the catastrophic meltdown of the world’s nuclear power facilities poses an additional threat to all life on Earth.’
Of course, as Professor McPherson concedes, he may be wrong. It’s just that the evidence offered by an increasing number of scientists on different aspects of the crisis now indicates that it will be many scientists who will need to be wrong for near-term extinction not to occur.
Human use of fossil fuels to power aircraft, shipping and vehicles as well as for industrial production and to generate electricity (among other purposes) released 34 billion metric tons (34 gigatons) of carbon dioxide into Earth’s biosphere, a 7% decrease on 2019 due to the elite shutdown of the global economy. The biggest reductions occurred in the USA and Europe with China’s monstrous CO₂ emissions only marginally less than 2019. See ‘Global Carbon Project’.
Of course carbon dioxide was also released in response to certain ‘land-use changes’, such as rainforest destruction which led to 16 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions, and human-caused tragedies such as extensive wildfires during the year. Taking into account CO₂ removals, primarily from vegetation regrowth due to abandonment of agricultural lands, total CO₂ emissions from human activities (from fossil CO₂ and land-use change) were about 40 billion tonnes in 2020, compared to 43 billion tonnes in 2019. Hence, the expected growth rate in atmospheric CO₂ concentration in 2020 (2.5 ppm) is near the 2019 growth rate, despite slightly lower anthropogenic emissions due to elite-driven policies slowing the global economy.
According to the observatory at Mauna Loa, the monthly average atmospheric CO₂ concentration had reached 413ppm by year’s end.
So while the land and ocean sinks absorbed 54% of CO₂ emissions from the atmosphere in 2020, exacerbating ocean acidification among other problems, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations in 2020 are now 50% above the pre-industrial (1750) level of 275ppm.
As one measure of their contempt for the utterly inadequate goals of the Paris climate agreement in 2015, and with government approval, ‘437 of the 935 companies featured in the [Global Coal Exit List] are planning either new coal plants, new coal mines or new coal transport infrastructure’. Since 2015, ‘the world’s installed coal-fired capacity has increased by 137 GW, an amount equal to the operating coal plant fleets of Germany, Russia and Japan combined. And over 500 GW of new coal-fired capacity is still in the pipeline’ with more than half of that in China.
72 billion land animals (mainly chickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits, geese, turkeys, sheep, goats and beef cattle) were killed for food. In addition, between 37 and 120 billion fish were killed on commercial farms with another 2.7 trillion fish caught and killed in the wild. See ‘How Many Animals Are Killed for Food Every Day?’
In addition, according to Humane Society International, about 100 million animals (particularly mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and rabbits) were bred and slaughtered in fur farms geared to supplying the fashion industry. In addition to farming, millions of wild animals were trapped and killed for fur, as were hundreds of thousands of seals.
Apart from that, more than 100 million animals were killed for laboratory purposes in the United States alone and there were other animal deaths in shelters, zoos and in blood sports.
Obviously, the primary ‘blood sport’ is hunting. In the United States, over 100 million animals are reported killed by hunters each year. See ‘Facts – Wildlife’. ‘This figure does not include millions of animals killed illegally by poachers, animals who are injured, escape, and die later, or orphaned animals who die after their mothers are killed.’
But there are many other ‘blood sports’, such as cockfighting and bullfighting, often involving gambling, each of which exacts a shocking death and injury toll on the unfortunate birds and animals forced to ‘fight’.
While practiced in many countries, in the Philippines the practice is 6,000 years old and legal, with cockfighting having the status of a national sport, generating billions of dollars annually and killing 30 million roosters each year.
In relation to another ancient practice – bullfighting – ‘thousands of bulls are barbarically slaughtered in bullrings around the world’ each year. As one would expect, centuries of the practice have enabled ‘bullfighters’ to learn countless ways to rig the fight in their favor and this is done shamelessly. See ‘Bullfighting’. Particularly popular in Spain and Mexico, bullfighting is still practiced in many countries despite activist efforts inducing a declining popularity in some places.
Farming of animals for human consumption released 7.1 gigatons of CO₂-equivalent into Earth’s atmosphere; this represented 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. About 44% of livestock emissions were in the form of methane (which was 44% of anthropogenic CH₄ emissions), 29% as Nitrous Oxide (which was 53% of anthropogenic N₂O emissions) and 27% as Carbon Dioxide (which was 5% of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions). See ‘GHG Emissions by Livestock’.
Human use of fossil fuels and farming of crops and animals released more than 3.2 million metric tons of (CO₂ equivalent) nitrous oxide (N₂O) into Earth’s atmosphere. See ‘Nitrous oxide emissions’. Each year, more than 100 million tonnes of nitrogen is spread on crops in the form of synthetic fertilizer. See ‘Fertilizers by Nutrient’. Along with an equivalent amount of livestock manure, this releases a colossal amount of N₂O into the atmosphere, accounting for almost 70% of N₂O emissions. See ‘A comprehensive quantification of global nitrous oxide sources and sinks’.
While N₂O is ‘only’ the third most important greenhouse gas after CO₂ (which lasts up to thousands of years in the atmosphere) and CH₄, N₂O has 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and stays in the atmosphere for an average 116 years. Atmospheric concentrations of N₂O have now exceeded 331 parts per billion, 22% above the level in 1750, before the industrial era began.
Glaciers and mountain ice fields – whether located in Greenland or other regions of the far north, the Himalaya, at the Equator, in southern latitudes or Antarctica – are all melting at unprecedented and accelerating rates, losing billions of tonnes of ice in 2020. For a discussion of the details and the implications of this, see ‘Our Vanishing World: Glaciers’.
The ongoing destruction of Earth’s oceans continued unabated and accelerated in key areas.
In summary, the oceans are warming, acidifying and deoxygenating; being contaminated with nuclear radiation, by offshore oil and gas drilling as well as oil spills; being damaged by deep sea mining; being polluted by industrial (including chemical) and farming wastes which are generating ocean ‘dead zones’; being polluted by nitrogen and discharges from warships, commercial shipping and cruise ships as well as monumental amounts of plastic; being overfished and illegally fished; being subjected to destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling, blast fishing, cyanide fishing, ghost fishing and aquaculture; being damaged by sand mining, port and harbor dredging, the increasing spread of invasive species, the live trade in fish and coral for the aquarium industry, the increasing level of noise pollution, and even by wildfires.
In essence then: the oceans are under siege on a vast range of fronts and are effectively ‘dying’. They are being stripped of everything of value to humans (ranging from its many creatures, such as fish and whales, to products such as sand, oil and minerals) while having a monumental range and quantity of garbage and pollutants (ranging from household to radioactive waste) dumped into them. All these shifts taken together, however, result in a rapid and serious decline in ocean health and this, in turn, adversely impacts all species dependent on the ocean including fish, mammals and seabirds as well as ocean plant and microscopic life.
Earth’s fresh water and ground water was further depleted and contaminated. And whether in streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands or aquifers, water is being ongoingly polluted as contaminants find their way into fresh water sources wherever they occur. Moreover, once contaminated, a water source may be unusable for thousands of years. See ‘Water Pollution: Everything You Need to Know’.
The depletion of fresh water is a primary outcome of the ongoing deforestation of the planet and is manifesting in several ways including as localized droughts, which are becoming increasingly common as a number of cities and regions around the world can attest. According to the World Resources Institute, half of the surface water in some countries – mainly in Central Asia and the Middle East – was depleted between 1984 and 2015, with agriculture using an average of 70% of the water. 36 countries are ‘extremely water-stressed’ and water is now a major factor in conflict in at least 45 countries.
Separately from depletion, fresh water was contaminated by bacteria, viruses and household chemicals from faulty septic systems; hazardous wastes from abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (of which there are over 20,000 in the USA alone); leaks from landfill items such as car battery acid, paint and household cleaners; the pesticides, herbicides and other poisons used on farms and home gardens; radioactive waste from nuclear tests (some of it stored in glaciers that are now melting); and the chemical contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in search of shale gas, for which about 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic and carcinogenic like lead and benzene, have been used.
In relation to thermal and hydroelectric power generation, all versions of which are highly dependent on huge quantities of fresh water to function, 47 percent of the world’s thermal power plant capacity – mostly coal, natural gas and nuclear – and 11 percent of hydroelectric capacity are located in highly water-stressed areas. See ‘Water Stress Threatens Nearly Half the World’s Thermal Power Plant Capacity’.
The good news is that renewable energy is less water-expensive, by orders of magnitude, and constitutes another compelling reason for switching to renewables.
Given that less than 1% of fresh water is readily available for human consumption and must be shared with the natural environment (because most fresh water is stored in glaciers, for example), and that official estimates indicate that a person needs at least 50 to 100 liters of water per day for consumption and basic hygiene and that between 2,000 and 5,000 liters of water are needed to produce a person’s daily food – see ‘7 Graphics Explain the State of the World’s Water’ – the ongoing depletion and contamination of fresh water in the context of an expanding human population constitutes a serious threat to human well-being as well as the ecological health of Earth’s biosphere.
This is particularly the case given that the production of our consumer goods – and particularly electronic items such as computers, mobile phones, cars… – uses staggering amounts of fresh water to produce each item and so curtailing individual and global demand for electronic items particularly is a crucial part of any strategy to conserve water. For example, it takes 147,971 liters to make a car and up to 30 liters of water to make a single chip for a laptop or smartphone.
The longstanding covert military use of geoengineering – spraying tens of millions of tons of highly toxic metals (including aluminium, barium and strontium) and toxic coal fly ash nanoparticulates (containing arsenic, chromium, thallium, chlorine, bromine, fluorine, iodine, mercury and radioactive elements) into the atmosphere from jet aircraft to weaponize the atmosphere and weather – in order to enhance elite control of human populations, continued unchecked. Geoengineering is systematically destroying Earth’s ozone layer – which blocks the deadly portion of solar radiation, UV-C and most UV-B, from reaching Earth’s surface – as well as adversely altering Earth’s weather patterns and polluting its air, water and soil at incredible cost to the health and well-being of living organisms and the biosphere. See ‘Geoengineering Watch’, including ‘Engineered Climate Cataclysm: Hurricane Harvey’.
The incredibly destructive 5G technology, which a vast number of scientists – currently totaling more than 314,000 individuals and organizations from 214 nations and territories: see ‘International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space’ https://www.5gspaceappeal.org/the-appeal – are warning will have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth, is now being rapidly introduced without informed public consultation and despite ongoing protests around the world. For a straightforward account of the enormity of what is at stake, see the recently revised and updated edition of The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life or read a review of the book: ‘Deadly Rainbow: Will 5G Precipitate the Extinction of All Life on Earth?’
The following articles and videos will also give you a solid understanding of key issues from the viewpoint of human and planetary well-being.
But the social and economic costs of GM crops have been catastrophic for many, as explained years ago by Professor Vandana Shiva in relation to the ‘epidemic of farmers’ suicides in India’ resulting from the 95% control by Monsanto (since merged with Bayer) over cotton seed supply. This meant that instead of putting aside some seed from each year’s harvest for planting the following season (as had been practiced for millennia), farmers were compelled to buy a new supply of (pesticide-dependent) GM seed – the ‘intellectual property’ of Monsanto – to plant each new crop.
Of course, among the many other problems with GMO seeds, they can only be planted as monocultures rather than as part of a mixed farming regime (particularly important for small family farmers who traditionally grow their own food) and ‘GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the emergence of superpests and superweeds.’ Since the introduction of expensive GMO seeds into India, suicides by Indian farmers have become an annual ‘epidemic’ with thousands occurring each year due to accumulated debts that are impossible to repay. As Shiva evocatively puts it: ‘No GMO seeds, no debt, no suicides.’
But it goes well beyond that with control of nature the ultimate goal.
Notwithstanding the massive problems generated by GMOs just explained, the monstrous control exercised by the major agrochemical and biotech corporations has ensured that governments are ongoingly approving one disastrous move after another. For example, approval has recently been given to release 750 million GMO mosquitoes – created to ‘eradicate mosquito populations’ – into the wild to destroy the mosquito population in the Florida Keys in the USA. Apart from its obvious adverse impact on the food supply of insect-eating birds and amphibians, this will generate a host of other problems.
Of course, government approval is not difficult to obtain. In fact: ‘The GMO agritech industry’s strategy has been to first spread seeds illegally or contaminate supplies and then obtain regulatory approval.’
And if you thought that the mosquito experiment just mentioned is extreme, consider the implications of ‘gene drives’. So what are gene drives? ‘Imagine that by releasing a single fly into the wild you could genetically alter all the flies on the planet – causing them all to turn yellow, carry a toxin, or go extinct. This is the terrifyingly powerful premise behind gene drives: a new and controversial genetic engineering technology that can permanently alter an entire species by releasing one bioengineered individual.’
How effective are they? ‘Gene drives can entirely re-engineer ecosystems, create fast spreading extinctions, and intervene in living systems at a scale far beyond anything ever imagined.’ For example, if gene drives are engineered into a fast-reproducing species ‘they could alter their populations within short timeframes, from months to a few years, and rapidly cause extinction.’ This radical new technology, also called a ‘mutagenic chain reaction’, combines the extreme genetic engineering of synthetic biology and new gene editing techniques with the idea ‘that humans can and should use such powerful unlimited tools to control nature. Gene drives will change the fundamental relationship between humanity and the natural world forever.’
The implications for the environment, food security, peace, and even social stability are breathtaking, particularly given that existing ‘government regulations for the use of genetic engineering in agriculture have allowed widespread genetic contamination of the food supply and the environment.’
Consistent with their track records of sponsoring, promoting and using hi-tech atrocities against life, the ‘Gene Drive Files’ reveal that the US military (that is, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) – which ‘appears to be the largest single funder of gene drive research on the planet’ – and individuals such as Bill Gates have been heavily involved in financing research, development and promotion of this grotesque technology.
‘Why would the US military be interested?’ you might ask. Well, imagine what could be done to an ‘enemy’ race with an extinction gene drive.
Incalculable amounts of waste of every conceivable kind – including antibiotic waste, military waste, nuclear waste, nanowaste and genetically engineered organisms, including ‘gene drives’ (or ‘mutagenic chain reactions’) – were released into Earth’s biosphere, with an endless series of adverse consequences for life. See ‘Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe?’
Not content to dump our junk on Earth, an incalculable amount of junk was also dumped in Space which already contains 100 trillion items of orbiting junk.
As one outcome of our dysfunctional parenting model and political systems, fascism continued to rise around the world. See ‘The Psychology of Fascism’.
Despite the belief that we have ‘the right to privacy’, privacy (in any sense of the word) was ongoingly eroded in 2020 and, as reported last year, is now effectively non-existent, particularly thanks to Alphabet (owner of Google). Taken together, ‘Uber, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Tinder, Apple, Lyft, Foursquare, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, Angry Birds… have turned our computers and phones into bugs that are plugged in to a vast corporate-owned surveillance network. Where we go, what we do, what we talk about, who we talk to, and who we see – everything is recorded and, at some point, leveraged for value.’
Moreover, given Google’s integrated relationship with the US government, the US military, the CIA, and major US weapons manufacturers, there isn’t really anything you can do that isn’t known by those who want to know it. In essence, Google is ‘a powerful global corporation with its own political agenda and a mission to maximise profits for shareholders’ and it partly achieves this by expanding the surveillance programs of the national security state at the direction of the global elite. But Google isn’t alone and it isn’t just happening in the USA.
The right to free speech, accurate information and conscience-based nonviolent activism was dramatically eroded in 2020 as agents of the global elite (such as national governments, the medical industry and major corporations such as those in the pharmaceutical, tech and media industries), under ‘cover’ of the non-existent Covid-19 pandemic, routinely censored efforts to publish the truth, dramatically expanded official output of propaganda (particularly in relation to the non-existent SARS-CoV-2) and clamped down on political action.
Moreover, both in direct response to and separately from the elite coup, ‘governments around the world have been taking a wave of measures to close down the space for peaceful protest’: censorship, restrictions on access or violent acts directed against those whose views or actions were seen as dangerous or wrong in many contexts continued. Global Witness, Human Rights Watch and other organizations documented an endless series of setbacks for free speech and political activity in a wide variety of countries around the world with individuals suffering smear campaigns or being subjected to spurious criminal charges to silence them, activists and journalists being imprisoned for telling the truth, nonviolent activists being assaulted and killed, critics being silenced by defamation laws or ‘disappearance’, and the closure of newspapers, television stations and the internet to prevent rapid promulgation of information, among other infringements. See, for example, ‘Free Speech’, ‘The supply chain of violence’ and ‘Defending Tomorrow’.
In addition, according to Global Witness, a record number of people (40% of whom were indigenous) were killed last year, averaging four each week, for defending their land and environment particularly against extractive industries. Predictably: ‘The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown have intensified the problems land and environmental defenders face. Governments around the world – from the US to Brazil and Colombia to the Philippines – have used the crisis to strengthen draconian measures to control citizens and roll back hard-fought environmental regulations.’
See ‘Defending Tomorrow’. There is also ‘growing evidence of opportunistic killings during the Covid-19 lockdown in which activists were left as “sitting ducks” in their own homes’.
Of course, the most public evisceration of human rights in 2020 was that inflicted on Julian Assange whose only ‘crime’ was to expose the truth about elite atrocities and war crimes inflicted by US military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other truths.
Moreover, even if it was inclined, the elite is now powerless to avert extinction given that, if we are to have any chance given the advanced nature of the crisis and the incredibly short timeframe, we must plan intelligently to mobilize a substantial proportion of the human population in a strategically-focused effort. Nothing else can work.
Highlights of 2020
But so that the picture is clear and ‘balanced’: were there any gains made against the onslaught outlined above, particularly given we were driven inexorably closer to extinction?
Separately from this, there have been some minor activist gains: for example, some western banks and insurance companies are no longer financially supporting the expansion of the western weapons industry and the western coal industry, some superannuation (pension) funds have divested from weapons and fossil fuels, some rainforest groups have managed to save portions of Earth’s rainforest heritage, and activist groups continue to work on a variety of issues sometimes making modest gains.
Moreover, there are many ongoing struggles, notably including efforts to resist the elite coup – see, for example, the ‘World Freedom Alliance’ – and local campaigns such as that by India’s farmers and their allies to secure justice against the draconian measures being implemented by the Modi national government. See ‘The year that was… India’s people fight back a hostile government’.
However, none of these (limited) gains or ongoing campaigns have directly addressed elite power. That is, none of these initiatives seriously considered how the global elite has spent centuries consolidating its power and is now very close to acquiring the worldwide control it has long worked to achieve. Therefore, of course, none of these groups has developed strategies to functionally undermine elite power; a serious shortcoming given that the global elite’s technotyranny is now imminent.
Responding Powerfully
If we are to defeat the elite coup, effectively tackle other manifestations of violence and avert the primary paths to human extinction, we must do many things.
Importantly, if you would like to be part of the campaign to undermine elite power, defeat the elite coup and prevent implementation of the transhumanist agenda, see the list of strategic goals necessary to achieve these outcomes here: Coup Strategic Aims. Other pages of this website outline how to develop and implement a comprehensive nonviolent strategy to achieve these outcomes (which can be readily adapted for local campaigns).
If you wish to nurture children to become powerful individuals capable of acting strategically to prevent and respond to violence while able to critique society and elite propaganda,
If you wish to focus on strategically resisting one of the primary threats to human existence – nuclear war, the deployment of 5G, the collapse of biodiversity and/or the climate catastrophe – you can read about nonviolent strategy, including strategic goals to focus your campaigns, from here: Campaign Strategic Aims.
Importantly, as well, you can both resist the above ‘extinction threats’ while also reducing your vulnerability to elite control by joining those who recognize the critical importance of reduced consumption and greater self-reliance by participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. In addition, you are welcome to consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.
To summarize the evidence presented above: as a result of the elite coup being conducted against humanity, human beings stand on the verge of becoming ‘techno-slaves’ devoid of their unique identity, stripped of the human rights to privacy as well as freedom of speech, assembly and movement (among others), and minus the free will to act out their own volition and conscience.
Moreover, cumulative actions by the global elite over past centuries combined with the submissive complicity of most of the human population, have enabled a vast list of violent atrocities in many forms (but touched on above) to destroy or impair the lives of most human beings and largely destroy Earth’s biosphere.
In addition, key actions taken by the global elite in 2020 have accelerated the four primary paths to human extinction.
Hence, very soon now, the overwhelming evidence is that Homo sapiens will join other species that only exist as part of the fossil record.
Our chance of escaping this fate is now remote, essentially for two reasons. Most people have been terrorized into not seeking out the evidence for themselves (and into simply believing what elite agents, such as governments and the corporate media, tell them) and most of those struggling to resist our fate (in one context or another) do not act to strategically undermine elite power (both now and in the future).
Therefore, the global elite continues to exercise enormous power to determine our fate and only a strategic response, encompassing the various components noted above, has any genuine prospect of defeating the elite coup to defend our identity, freedom and volition, while averting each of the primary paths to human extinction.
‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls.’
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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Or, if the options above seem too complicated, consider committing to:
The Earth Pledge
Out of love for the Earth and all of its creatures, and my respect for their needs, from this day onwards I pledge that:
I will only eat organically/biodynamically grown food
I will minimize the amount of fresh water I use, including by minimizing my ownership and use of electronic devices
I will not own or use a mobile (cell) phone
I will not buy rainforest timber
I will not buy or use single-use plastic, such as bags, bottles, containers, cups and straws
I will not use banks, superannuation (pension) funds or insurance companies that provide any service to corporations involved in fossil fuels, nuclear power and/or weapons
I will not accept employment from, or invest in, any organization that supports or participates in the exploitation of fellow human beings or profits from killing and/or destruction of the biosphere
I will not get news from the corporate media (mainstream newspapers, television, radio, Google, Facebook, Twitter…)
I will make the effort to learn a skill, such as food gardening or sewing, that makes me more self-reliant
I will gently encourage my family and friends to consider signing this pledge.
What occurred at the United States Capitol last week was surely reprehensible, but to my mind the real enduring damage that was done to our form of government took place in a basement in Wilmington Delaware where president-designate Joe Biden was putting together some of the final pieces of his foreign policy and national security team.
Hopes that the Democrats would accommodate their progressive wing to some extent by backing off of the aggressive “American first” policies pursued by Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo were extinguished with the elevation ofWendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland to the number two and three senior positions at the State Department, to back up Secretary of State designate Tony Blinken.
Nuland is perhaps the surprise appointment as she famously was the Obama Administration’s regime change monster when she served as Assistant Secretary of State. She was the prime mover of the blatantly interventionist policy in Ukraine, featuring herself and Senator John McCain sauntering around Kiev’s Maidan Square handing out cookies to rioters. Thousands died when political turmoil over a contested election turned into an out-and-out coup complete with mystery riflemen shooting into the mobs to energize them.
The regime change was funded by $5 billion courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer and it also riled Russia, which shares an extensive border and economic links with Ukraine. The coup was, by the way, intended to replaced a Russia-friendly head of state with someone who was not so inclined. Astonishingly, the Kremlin was able to figure that out and responded by resuming possession of the Crimea, which was largely populated by Russians.
Nuland became best known after the fact when she was foolish enough to speak on an unencrypted cell phone in a discussion relating to whom the United States would install to run post-coup Ukraine. When her interlocutor objected that the European Union might want to have some say, perhaps as a mediator, in how Ukrainian politics might play out, she responded “Fuck the E.U.,” which might be regarded as Diplomacy 101 neocon style.
Victoria Nuland has been active in the government to private sector revolving door since Obama departed the White House, giving interviews and writing op-eds critical of the Trump State Department and of the policies being promoted. She has been CEO of the neocon Center for a New American Security, held a revolving door sinecure at the Boston Consulting Group and another at the Albright Stonebridge Group. Apparently her record of being seriously wrong in foreign policy has only served to improve her resume in Washington’s hawkish foreign policy establishment. Her return to power might also be due to the profile of her husband Robert, who was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by Trump.
Image on the right: Under Secretary Sherman meets with Yossi Cohen, National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on February 18, 2015. (Public Domain)
Wendy Sherman is less well known. She has been nominated to become the Deputy Secretary of State. She is currently a Senior Counselor also at the Albright Stonebridge Group and a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is regarded as a protégé of the Clintons and in particular of ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, she of 500,000 dead Iraqi children was “worth it” boast. Sherman knows Biden from having previously served in the Obama Administration as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the fourth-ranking official in State, from September 2011 to October 2015. During the Clinton Administration, she served as Counselor of the United States Department of State and Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State and North Korea Policy Coordinator. Under Obama she was the chief negotiator on the Iranian nuclear program. She was regarded as a hardliner, saying “We know that deception is part of the DNA” of Iranians and she was characteristically careful to brief the Israelis on everything that she was doing. The White House was intent on coming to an agreement nevertheless, which was signed in 2015 as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a pact which has since been rejected by Donald Trump and which Biden may or may not seek to resuscitate.
And then there is Tony Blinken, who apparently will be the boss of both Sherman and Nuland. Blinken is in some respects Israel’s lead man in Washington. He was a strong supporter of invading Iraq and even recommended partitioning the defeated nation into three parts. He was a supporter of destroying Libya and an architect of the anti-Syria policy pursued by Obama. In an interview in the Times of Israel Blinken confirmed Biden’s position on possibly reducing aid to Israel if the Jewish state were to do things that damaged U.S. interests. Blinken “…reiterated Biden’s position that he would not condition aid to Israel. He [Biden] is resolutely opposed to it. He would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political decisions it makes, full stop.” Dennis Ross, often described as Israel’s lawyer, praises him for having “…an instinctive emotional attachment to Israel,” referring to Blinken’s frequently cited Jewish and refugee roots. It was an interesting unambiguous admission from Blinken that both he and Joe Biden put Israeli interests ahead of those of the United States.
Blinken’s personal view of unfettered support for Israel allegedly derives from his stepfather having claimed to be a survivor of the so-called holocaust, a tale that he invoked several times during his acceptance speech on November 24th. The Timesinterview concluded with Blinken asserting that “One of the things that’s really shaped the vice president’s… career-long support for Israel and its security is the lesson of the Holocaust. He believes strongly that a secure Jewish homeland in Israel is the single best guarantee to ensure that never again will the Jewish people be threatened with destruction.”
The indefatigable Israel-firster Tony Blinken has also served as a “conduit” to those in government for Israel advocacy groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). And now that we have Tony Blinken as Secretary of State Designate the door will soon be even more wide open to the Israel Lobby than it was under Trump. And Nuland and Sherman, both of whom are also Jewish and ardent Zionists, will be along for the ride.
And outside of State, we have Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Haines is a former CIA and National Security Council (NSC) officer who was directly engaged in suppressing much of the classified report on the torture program run by the Agency out of secret prisons. She was instrumental in making sure that no CIA officers were punished for their war crimes and worked with Obama’s intelligence adviser John Brennan to enable the infamous drone program. When Haines was the NSC’s top lawyer, Brennan was the keeper of the so-called “kill list” of American citizens overseas that he and Obama would review every Tuesday morning. It was Haines who provided the legal authorizations to launch missile attacks from drones and she has never been held accountable for any of her decisions. There is little doubt that she will persist in her hardline views as DNI. Like Blinken, Nuland and Sherman she is also Jewish and it should be presumed her pro-Israel credentials are rock solid.
And then there is the boss himself, Joe Biden. He is a self-described Zionist who also is well on board the hate Russia express. In an interview published in the New Yorkerin July 2014 he is quoted as describing a 2011 meeting in Moscow with then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Biden claimed that “I had an interpreter, and when he was showing me his office I said, ‘It’s amazing what capitalism will do, won’t it? A magnificent office!’ And he laughed. As I turned, I was this close to him, I said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul’.” Pressed on whether the tale was true, Biden confirmed it, “absolutely, positively . . . And he looked back at me, and he smiled, and he said ‘We understand one another’.”
The story is, like so many others in the Biden Song Book an apparent fabrication, according to others who were on the same trip. The meeting never took place. Does Biden really believe it to be true? More important, does he frequently engage foreign leaders by first insulting them before looking into their eyes and discerning whether they have a soul or not?
The Trump Administration’s view of both Russia and China is unreservedly antagonistic, a stance that is likely to continue and even get worse with the Democrats in power. The two nations are currently regarded by policymakers in Washington as actual “enemies” and U.S. national defense strategy includes the government’s belligerent intention “To restore America’s competitive edge by blocking global rivals Russia and China from challenging the U.S. and our allies.” And on 25 October 2020, Biden made the point publicly, declaring that “the biggest threat to America right now in terms of breaking up security and our alliances is Russia.”
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation
Professor of Politics Keith Whittington argued as follows:
“Impeachments are to protect the republic from dangerous officeholders…”
“(T)he ability to disqualify a former officer who has been demonstrated to have committed grave abuses of office in the past might be valuable.”
Not according to Law Professor Ross Garber arguing that constitutional language limits impeachment to current office holders, saying:
“Impeachment could only happen while Trump is in office, not after he leaves.”
Nothing in the Constitution permits impeachment of a former president. Yet nothing rules it out.
According to Findlaw.com:
If a former US president or other office holder was impeached and convicted by a Senate two-thirds super-majority, “it’s a near certainty that (his) person would take the case to the courts.”
“It’s also likely that the case would make its way to the Supreme Court, where justices would probably all be thinking about calling in sick for the next six months.”
The ostensible purpose of impeaching and convicting a former US president would be to prevent that person from holding office again — along with imposing maximum humiliation as a convicted felon, rightfully or wrongfully.
In 1876, House members impeached William Belknap, President Ulysses Grant’s war secretary — after he resigned from office.
A Senate trial months later failed to reach a required super-majority, Belknap thus acquitted.
Given an equally divided US Senate today with 50 Republicans and 50 Dems, if Trump is impeached as president or private citizen, conviction by Senate super-majority would seem highly unlikely.
Acquitting Trump would defeat the Pelosi/Schumer-led Dems from wanting him prevented from running again for president.
Humiliating him more than already would also be defeated, along with seeking to label him a convicted felon.
According to former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter, Trump could be impeached based on the Belknap precedent.
Under the Constitution’s Article II, Section 4:
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Law Professor Jonathan Turley argued that by “seeking (Trump’s) removal for incitement, (Dems) would gut not only the impeachment standard but also free speech, all in a mad rush to remove Trump just days before his term ends,” adding:
Dems want Trump removed for “his remarks to supporters” they falsely claim led to last Wednesday’s Capitol Hill violence.
“(His) address d(id) not meet the definition for incitement under the criminal code.”
“It would (or should) be viewed as protected speech by the Supreme Court.”
“Trump never…called for violence or riots” in his speech or tweets.
“(H)e urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to raise their opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to back the recent challenges made by a few members of Congress.”
He told the crowd of supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices be heard.”
His public remarks were willfully distorted by Dems and their media press agent.
Smelling blood in the water, they want Trump impeached as president or after his term expires.
Turley: “There was no call for lawless action by Trump.”
He “call(ed) for a legitimate protest at the Capitol.”
“(V)iolence was not imminent…”
“(T)he vast majority of (Capitol Hill) protesters were not violent before the march, and most did not riot inside the Capitol.”
“Like many violent protests in the last four years, criminal conduct was carried out by a smaller group of instigators.”
Undemocratic Dems want Trump impeached and removed from office “for remarks (permitted) by the First Amendment.”
“It would create precedent for the impeachment of any president (who rightfully or wrongfully is) blamed for violent acts of others…”
In 1918, Eugene Debs publicly opposed the WW I draft — his First Amendment right.
Yet he was wrongfully arrested, charged with sedition, convicted, sentenced and imprisoned.
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutional breach, what Turley called one of its most “infamous” rulings, adding:
Dems today “are now arguing something even more extreme as the basis for impeachment.”
“Under their theory, any president could be removed for rhetoric that is seen to have the (undefined) ‘natural tendency’ to encourage others to act in a riotous fashion.”
“Such a standard would allow for a type of vicarious impeachment that attributes conduct of third parties to any president for the purposes of removal.”
At the same time, Dems urged anti-Trump elements to publicly protest.
“(T)here needs to be unrest in the streets,” said Biden’s VP Kamala Harris, adding:
“(T)here needs to be unrest in the streets.”
“(P)rotesters should not let up” even when some marches turn violent.
The obvious double standard needs no elaboration.
According to Pelosi/Schumer-led Dems, Trump’s “guilt is not doubted and innocence is not deliberated,” said Turley.
“This would do to the Constitution what the violent rioters did to the Capitol and leave it in tatters.”
On Sunday, Pelosi said the following:
“If we do not receive unanimous consent” for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, legislation (to do it will) be brought up (in the House on) the following day.”
“We are calling on (Mike Pence) to respond within 24 hours.”
“Next, we will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the floor” of the House.
With less than 10 days remaining in office, Pelosi defied reality, calling Trump “an imminent threat.”
Pence reportedly opposes invoking of the 25th Amendment.
Calls to his office by Pelosi and Schumer weren’t answered by staff, nor did Pence return them.
Removing Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment requires consent by the vice president and a majority of cabinet members.
According to Dem House Majority Whip James Clyburn:
“Let’s give…Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running, and maybe we’ll send the articles (of impeachment to the Senate) sometime after that.”
While in office or after his term expires, House impeachment and/or Senate conviction of Trump for constitutionally allowed speech would risk crossing a rubicon from what remains of the rule of law to tyranny.
Future presidents, other government elected and appointed officials — along with virtually Americans — could face a similar fate ahead by the unconstitutional standard called for by Pelosi and Schumer.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
Trent’anni fa, nelle prime ore del 17 gennaio 1991, iniziava nel Golfo Persico l’operazione «Tempesta del deserto», la guerra contro l’Iraq che apriva la sequenza delle guerre del dopo guerra fredda. Essa viene lanciata dagli Usa e dai loro alleati nel momento in cui, dopo il crollo del Muro di Berlino, stanno per dissolversi il Patto di Varsavia e la stessa Unione Sovietica. Ciò crea una situazione geopolitica interamente nuova, e gli Usa tracciano una nuova strategia per trarne il massimo vantaggio. Negli anni Ottanta gli Usa hanno sostenuto l’Iraq di Saddam Hussein nella guerra contro l’Iran di Khomeini. Ma quando nel 1988 termina questa guerra, gli Usa temono che l’Iraq acquisti un ruolo preminente nella regione. Attuano quindi di nuovo la politica del «divide et impera».
Spingono il Kuwait a esigere l’immediato rimborso del credito concesso all’Iraq e a danneggiarlo sfruttando oltremisura il giacimento petrolifero che si estende sotto ambedue i territori. Washington fa credere a Baghdad di voler restare neutrale nel conflitto tra i due paesi ma, quando nel luglio 1990 truppe irachene invadono il Kuwait, forma una coalizione internazionale contro l’Iraq. Viene inviata nel Golfo una forza di 750 mila uomini, di cui il 70 per cento statunitensi, agli ordini del generale Usa Schwarzkopf. Per 43 giorni, dal 17 gennaio 1991, l’aviazione Usa e alleata effettua, con 2800 aerei, oltre 110 mila sortite, sganciando 250 mila bombe, comprese quelle a grappolo che rilasciano oltre 10 milioni di submunizioni. Partecipano ai bombardamenti, insieme a quelle statunitensi, forze aeree e navali britanniche, francesi, italiane, greche, spagnole, portoghesi, belghe, olandesi, danesi, norvegesi e canadesi. Il 23 febbraio le truppe della coalizione, comprendenti oltre mezzo milione di soldati, lanciano l’offensiva terrestre.
Essa termina il 28 febbraio con un «cessate-il-fuoco temporaneo» proclamato dal presidente Bush. Subito dopo la guerra del Golfo, Washington lancia ad avversari e alleati un inequivocabile messaggio: «Gli Stati uniti rimangono il solo Stato con una forza, una portata e un’influenza in ogni dimensione – politica, economica e militare – realmente globali. Non esiste alcun sostituto alla leadership americana» (Strategia della sicurezza nazionale degli Stati Uniti, agosto 1991). La guerra del Golfo è la prima guerra a cui partecipa sotto comando Usa la Repubblica italiana, violando l’articolo 11 della Costituzione. La Nato, pur non partecipandovi ufficialmente in quanto tale, mette a disposizione sue forze e basi. Pochi mesi dopo, nel novembre 1991, il Consiglio Atlantico vara, sulla scia della nuova strategia Usa, il «nuovo concetto strategico dell’Alleanza».
Nello stesso anno in Italia viene varato il «nuovo modello di difesa» che, stravolgendo la Costituzione, indica quale missione delle forze armate «la tutela degli interessi nazionali ovunque sia necessario». Nasce così con la guerra del Golfo la strategia che guida le successive guerre sotto comando Usa – Jugoslavia 1999, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003, Libia 2011, Siria 2011, e altre – presentate come «operazioni umanitarie per l’esportazione della democrazia». Quanto ciò corrisponda a verità lo testimoniano i milioni di morti, invalidi, orfani, rifugiati provocati dalla guerra del Golfo, quella che nell’agosto 1991 il presidente Bush definisce «il crogiolo del nuovo ordine mondiale». A questi si aggiungono un milione e mezzo di morti, tra cui mezzo milione di bambini, provocati in Iraq dai successivi 12 anni di embargo, più molti altri dovuti agli effetti a lungo termine dei proiettili a uranio impoverito usati massicciamente nella guerra. Dopo quella dell’embargo, la nuova strage provocata dalla seconda guerra all’Iraq lanciata nel 2003.
Nello stesso «crogiolo» vengono bruciati migliaia di miliardi di dollari spesi per la guerra: solo per la seconda all’Iraq, l’Ufficio congressuale del bilancio stima la spesa statunitense a lungo termine in circa 2000 miliardi di dollari. Tutto questo va tenuto presente quando, tra poco, qualcuno ci ricorderà sui grandi media il trentesimo anniversario della Guerra del Golfo, «il crogiolo del nuovo ordine mondiale».
Apresentados o período de formação e o panorama histórico em que viveu Mariátegui, vejamos agora alguns tópicos de sua interpretação histórica da questão nacional peruana e latino-americana, bem como os principais traços de sua filosofia política.
Conforme já apontado, o pensamento mariateguiano tem o princípio da práxis como fundamento do materialismo-histórico: uma perspectiva “ativa” que o afasta tanto do “marxismo parlamentar” (passivo, pacifista) da Segunda Internacional (a Internacional Socialista); como também do “marxismo academicista”, marcadamente teórico, da corrente depois conhecida como marxismo ocidental (caso de certos representantes da dita Escola de Frankfurt, dentre outros) – intelectuais fechados no purismo dos debates acadêmicos, pouco comprometidos com a militância política concreta e trabalhos de base.
Por outro lado, o marxismo de Mariátegui tem na dialética outro princípio básico do pensamento começado por Marx e Engels, o que por sua vez o afasta de certas interpretações simplistas, afetadas pelo positivismo ou cientificismo moderno; por exemplo: o “evolucionismo social” (da Segunda Internacional), que “naturaliza” a evolução histórica humana; e as teorias “mecânicas”, que quiseram transplantar rigidamente modelos europeus para outras realidades completamente distintas, caso do “etapismo” e de outras proposições da Terceira Internacional (a Internacional Comunista, pela qual ele militou, mas sempre mantendo sua independência crítica). Para Mariátegui, na América – grandemente camponesa, indígena e mestiça –, o marxismo tem que promover um processo dialético entre os saberes da tradição e os da modernidade.
O marxismo de Mariátegui, em suma, se pauta pelos princípios dialético e de práxis, preservando deste modo o que se pode chamar realmente de “ortodoxia” no plano do materialismo-histórico:
– de práxis, pois não se basta em teorizações, mas tem por dever intervir no mundo, para a partir daí se repensar nesta nova realidade transformada;
– dialético, pois defende que a intervenção na realidade tem que se dar a partir da interpretação criteriosa de cada realidade, ação operada não segundo cópias de outras sociedades, mas sim mediante a orientação rigorosa da metodologia dialética (“bússola” que, ao observar as contradições universais e específicas do contexto histórico de cada povo, respalda-o na escolha de seus caminhos).
Retorno ao Peru: polêmicas com os reformistas
Em 1923, ao regressar do exílio, Mariátegui se encontra com Haya de la Torre, líder estudantil e político que o convida a participar das Universidades Populares González Prada, semente do que viria a ser a Aliança Popular Revolucionária Americana (APRA) – movimento político internacional de viés reformista.
Ele faria ali duas dezenas de conferências de difusão do marxismo, nas quais apresenta sua visão de uma cena mundial polarizada, na qual as teses social-democratas (evolucionistas) já não têm sentido. Para ele, as entidades de trabalhadores não podem ser apenas “institutos de extensão universitária agnóstica e incolor” – mas têm de ser ativas “escolas de classe”. O centro destes debates foi a “questão do índio” – tema que viria a ser central em sua obra.
É importante notar que a atração de Mariátegui pelo marxismo – apesar de suas distintas influências – nasce de sua busca por uma explicação de longa duração para os processos históricos de sua nação; e concomitantemente, de uma proposta revolucionária que vinculasse dialeticamente o passado, o presente e o futuro.
Sua sedução por Marx não provém apenas da grandeza deste pensador – como crítico do conhecimento ou combatente pelo comunismo –, mas tem raízes na intenção prática de um entendimento integral da civilização indígena, atrofiada pela colonização; na necessidade de romper com esta estrutura depauperada.
Neste sentido da busca “emancipatória”, o reformismo político, subjugado às classes dominantes, nada tem a contribuir. É necessário promover a união trabalhadores urbanos e camponeses – e organizar a revolução socialista.
Questão nacional: é preciso se fazer a nação
Lima, no início do século XX, já era uma capital cosmopolita, embora tivesse então mais relação com a Europa de que com o próprio interior indígena pauperizado. O Peru era um país fraturado em regiões bem separadas e com “ritmos históricos” peculiares: a costa, a serra e a selva Amazônica.
No contexto de sua reflexão sobre a questão nacional, Mariátegui depreende desse fato uma de suas principais teses: o Peru era ainda um “esboço”, uma nação incompleta. Conforme analisa em sua obra máxima, “Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana” [1], a formação peruana enquanto nação tinha sido interrompida.
Em sua interpretação, descreve um processo revolucionário que se dá “pelo alto”, através de uma via não-clássica – tema que discuto no livro “Marx na América: a práxis de Caio Prado e Mariátegui” [2]. Trata-se de uma análise original, que se abstém de copiar modelos clássicos europeus – e se aproxima daquela elaborada por Gramsci (para a Itália), ou da de Caio Prado Júnior (para o Brasil).
Segundo Mariátegui, é preciso se fazer o Peru – um país cuja elite se pautou quase sempre por modelos estrangeiros, até que o indigenismo, por volta dos anos 1920, interrompesse parcialmente esta tendência. Neste tempo, o que prevalecia, mesmo no âmbito socialista, era a ideia eurocêntrica de que a emancipação dos povos indígenas consistiria em torná-los “civilizados” (nos moldes ocidentais). Isto somente começa a mudar a partir da ação dos próprios índios que, na década de 1910, inauguram um novo ciclo de sua longa história de resistência contra a dominação do Estado colonial e dos latifundiários, e cujo marco é sua participação na Guerra do Pacífico.
Este conflito com o Chile foi o estopim para a autocrítica do meio socialista peruano, o qual se dá conta que as populações indígenas não precisavam ser “despertadas”, mas sim era preciso que os próprios revolucionários relativizassem suas referências eurocêntricas, atentando à experiência prática das mobilizações nativas.
Por um comunismo latino-americano
Em seu debate acerca da questão do índio, Mariátegui tem o propósito de submeter as diversas tendências de então a uma crítica socialista radical. É o caso do “nacionalismo crioulo”, defendido pela elite mestiça, subalterna ao estrangeiro – e que almeja ser “branca”: uma parcela da classe dominante que, apesar de sua pretensão “nacionalista”, é solidária com o colonialismo.
Contrário a isso, Mariátegui propõe um nacionalismo vanguardista, que reivindique o “passado incaico”, sociedade indígena que ele concebe como “comunista agrária”.
Com a fundação em 1926 da revista Amauta (“sábio”, em quêchua) – nome pelo qual ele ficaria conhecido – fica enfraquecida sua aproximação com a APRA. Em polêmica com esta organização, critica seu “indigenismo paternalista”. Defende que na América Latina não se poderia ter apenas uma imagem ou cópia do comunismo europeu, mas sim que seria necessária uma “criação heroica”, em que a comunidade camponesa nativa, essencialmente “solidária” em suas relações sociais, se tornaria a base do estado contemporâneo: comunista.
Rechaça também a teoria de certos indigenistas pautados por teorias “racistas” que, em oposição simétrica aos racistas eurocêntricos, afirmavam que os índios teriam algo inato em sua espécie que os levaria “naturalmente” a se libertarem. A “raça” por si só não é emancipadora – pondera Mariátegui –, os índios, assim como os operários das cidades, estão sujeitos às mesmas “leis” que governam todos os povos. O que assegurará a emancipação indígena é o “dinamismo” de uma economia e de uma cultura “comunista agrária” que porta “em suas entranhas o germe do socialismo”.
É papel do revolucionário, conclama ele, convencer os índios, mestiços e negros de que somente um governo de trabalhadores e camponeses unidos, representativo de todas as etnias, pode libertá-los de sua opressão.
Questão indígena: a “esperança” revolucionária
Em 1927, Mariátegui assume a publicação de “Tempestad en los Andes”, obra indigenista radical do historiador e antropólogo Luís Valcárcel. No prólogo, o pensador peruano escreve a frase que se tornaria emblema de seu marxismo: “a esperança indígena é absolutamente revolucionária”. A partir daí, desenvolve a ideia de que a revolução socialista é o “novo mito” do índio, o princípio mobilizador do revolucionário – a “fé” transformadora segundo a qual o comunismo andino deveria construir seus pilares.
Descartando os enfoques “filantrópicos” do problema indígena, compreende a questão como sendo de natureza econômica. O problema do índio é o problema da terra: é o latifúndio.
Polemizando com a APRA, acusa seu “indigenismo” de ser paternalista, teoria criada “verticalmente” por mestiços das classes letradas; algo que, apesar de útil na condenação do latifundismo, exala uma filantropia que não é adequada e nem serve à revolução: o comunismo não pode ser confundido com paternalismo.
No texto “El problema de la tierra” (1927), Mariátegui se declara um marxista “convicto e confesso” [3]. No ano seguinte, reunindo dezenas de ensaios elaborados desde 1924, publica seu clássico “Sete ensaios de interpretação da realidade peruana” – ponto alto de sua “investigação da realidade nacional de acordo com o método marxista”.
Por este tempo, dá-se o rompimento com o nacionalismo aprista. Em carta a Haya, expõe seu desacordo, sobretudo quanto à política de aliança de classes. Haya responde, acusando-o de europeísmo. Em sua réplica, Mariátegui defende a mencionada síntese dialética de saberes: “Acredito que não há salvação para a Indo-América sem a ciência e o pensamento ocidentais”; “meus juízos se nutrem dos meus ideais, dos meus sentimentos, de minhas paixões”.
Em defesa da Internacional Comunista
Ainda em 1928, Mariátegui coordena a fundação do Partido Socialista Peruano, colocando como prioridade sua vinculação à Internacional Comunista – organização da qual não mais se afastaria, embora mantendo sempre a independência de sua crítica.
Para ele, seu partido (que não usou o nome “Comunista” por uma questão tática) deveria adaptar suas ações às condições sociais peruanas, mas sem deixar de observar critérios universais, pois as circunstâncias nacionais estavam submetidas à história mundial. O método de luta do Partido Socialista – declara –, é o marxismo-leninismo, e a forma de luta, a revolução.
É um momento fervilhante de sua vida, época em que inicia grandes polêmicas político-filosóficas. Contesta não só o nacionalismo conservador, como também o dogma europositivista que previa certa “evolução natural” no socialismo (sempre nos moldes da história europeia).
No ensaio “Punto de vista anti-imperialista” (1929), aprofunda suas críticas à ideia de “burguesia nacional”: não existe na América Latina uma parcela da burguesia identificada ao povo. Entende que as elites latino-americanas não têm nenhum interesse em se confrontarem com o imperialismo, como “ingenuamente” creem os reformistas. Isto porque, diferentemente dos povos orientais, as elites não estão vinculadas ao povo por alguma história ou cultura comuns. Pelo contrário: “o aristocrata e o burguês” desprezam o “popular”, o “nacional”; antes de tudo “sentem-se brancos”, e o pequeno-burguês mestiço os imita.
Somente a revolução socialista pode barrar o imperialismo de um modo radical – afirma em “El problema de las razas en América Latina” (capítulo de “Ideología y política”).
Pouco depois, em 1930, a saúde do pensador e ativista peruano volta a se complicar. À véspera de sua morte, o ainda jovem marxista conclama os revolucionários a estudarem o “leninismo”.
Dialética de saberes: entre a tradição comunitária e a modernidade
Segundo Mariátegui, em meio ao processo de alienação política e existencial que é inerente ao capitalismo, a Revolução Soviética despertou o “homem matinal”, o ser cansado da noite artificialmente iluminada da decadência pós-bélica europeia-burguesa. E para a construção social deste novo homem, o socialismo deve absorver – dialeticamente – os bens de todas as fontes do conhecimento a que pôde ter acesso o mundo contemporâneo: não apenas as contribuições ocidentais, mas também as de outros povos, como os indígenas [“El alma matinal”].
Confrontando aspectos econômicos e culturais, o autor analisa qualidades de épocas históricas e de modelos socioeconômicos distintos, oferecendo importantes conceitos ao pensamento marxista: uma utopia revolucionária concreta que propõe síntese dialética entre os conhecimentos ocidental e oriental (no sentido de não-ocidental), entre o moderno e o antigo, entre objetividade e subjetividade – dentre outras contraposições potencialmente criadoras.
A intenção de Mariátegui é a de revitalizar a práxis marxista – em seu tempo abafada pelo reformismo contaminado de ideias positivistas da Internacional Socialista. Entende que o homem contemporâneo tem necessidade de “fé combativa”. A Primeira Guerra mostrou à humanidade que existem “fatos superiores à previsão da Ciência” e, especialmente, “fatos contrários ao interesse da Civilização” – escreve em “El crepúsculo de la civilización” (capítulo de “Signos y obras”).
Sua convicção é a de que o progresso irrefletido, promovido pelo capitalismo, redunda em aumento da barbárie. Do mero progresso técnico não se obtém “naturalmente” uma evolução humana, mas ao contrário, observando-se a totalidade do conjunto social, vê-se o agravamento da desorientação humana, em um processo civilizacional autodestrutivo.
Trata-se de uma realidade nítida aos olhos e corpos da periferia do sistema, hoje cada vez mais evidente, mas sempre subestimada desde a perspectiva eurocêntrica
Um marxista “romântico-realista”: mito e ação revolucionários
A concepção marxista mariateguiana exalta o valor das tradições comunitárias da América, ressaltando fatores que permitiram ao índio desfrutar de uma melhor qualidade de vida, anteriormente à invasão europeia – como é o caso da “solidariedade” característica do povo inca (em contraste com a “competitividade” da sociedade capitalista).
Porém, Mariátegui tem claro que, se antigamente o índio trabalhava com prazer e mais plenitude, hoje já não seria possível abdicar-se da ciência moderna. A tarefa está portanto em se relacionar os melhores frutos do pensamento contemporâneo “ocidental” (cujo ápice é o marxismo), ao melhor legado da sabedoria “oriental” (no caso peruano, refere-se aos saberes “não-ocidentais” dos povos andinos, materializados em seus hábitos de cooperação mútua e fé revolucionária).
Nesse sentido, defende a ideia de um “romantismo socialista”: um renovado espírito romântico que, incorporando a postura epistêmica objetiva do “realismo proletário” (percepção antipositivista, que percebe o homem como ser imperfeito), cultiva a energia subjetiva presente na esperança por uma nova sociedade.
Como reação à modernidade desumanizada – ao homem burguês acomodado, “cético”, “niilista” –, reelabora o conceito de mito revolucionário (a partir de ideia de Georges Sorel): uma “esperança sobre-humana”, utopia que traz um novo encantamento perante a vida. Seu esforço é por unir o impulso revigorante e idealista da subjetividade romântica, à concretude sempre conflitiva da objetividade realista.
O romantismo e o realismo são para Mariátegui duas posturas intrínsecas ao marxismo, que concorrem para a transformação revolucionária – segundo uma dialética romântico-realista.
Obra mariateguiana: um legado de peso – e na rede
Os principais trabalhos filosóficos e histórico-políticos de Mariátegui – além de sua correspondência, crítica literária, etc. – foram publicadas em 1959, em versão popular, pela editora Amauta (Lima), em 16 volumes escritos pelo autor, com o título “Obras completas”.
Em 1994, no marco comemorativo de seu centenário, a mesma editora publicaria “Mariátegui total”, edição mais completa, que inclui seus escritos de juventude e vasta correspondência.
Além do clássico “Siete ensayos…”, dentre seus livros, destacam-se “La escena contemporánea” (1925); e as obras póstumas que o autor deixou pré-organizadas:
– “Defensa del marxismo – polémica revolucionaria” (1928–1929/ publicada em 1934), cuja primeira edição em português (“Defesa do marxismo: polêmica revolucionária e outros escritos”) aparece somente em 2011, em edição da Boitempo que traz também outros textosfundamentais do autor [4];
– “El alma matinal y otras estaciones del hombre de hoy” (1923–1929/ publicada em 1950);
– “La novela y la vida” (1955).
Fora estes livros, seleções de seus textos foram organizadas posteriormente por seus editores, como “Temas de Nuestra América”, “Peruanicemos al Perú”, “Cartas de Italia”, “Signos y obras”, e em especial “Ideología y política” (livro que trata do indigenismo, do socialismo no Peru, e da posição político-filosófica marxista de Mariátegui).
Sua obra foi só em parte traduzida ao português – e algumas destas traduções se encontram abertas na rede. Já em castelhano, a edição de “Obras Completas” pode ser baixada na íntegra.
Yuri Martins-Fontes
Notas (parte II)
[1] MARIÁTEGUI. José Carlos. Sete ensaios de interpretação da realidade peruana. São Paulo: Expressão Popular/ Clacso, 2008.
[2] MARTINS-FONTES, Yuri. Marx na América: a práxis de Caio Prado e Mariátegui. São Paulo: Alameda/ Fapesp, 2018.
[3] “El problema de la tierra” viria a ser um de seus “Sete ensaios”, compondo seu livro clássico juntamente aos seguintes escritos: “Esquema de la evolución económica”; “El problema del indio”; “El proceso de la instrucción pública”; “El factor religioso”; “Regionalismo y centralismo”; e “El proceso de la literatura”.
[4] MARIÁTEGUI. J. C.; MARTINS-FONTES, Y. (org., trad. e introdução). Defesa do marxismo: polêmica revolucionária e outros escritos. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2011.
“We are in a desperate situation, and when you see the [COVID] modelling, you’ll fall off your chair,” [Ontario Premier] Ford said Friday during a news conference filled with dire warnings of what Ontario faces from COVID-19.
Fall off our chair laughing…. As an Ontario nurse wrote me yesterday, his hospital’s ER is running at half-capacity (despite “surging cases” of this common cold virus). Seems people are healthier than ever. Maybe they are getting more sleep during lockdown, more home-cooked meals? Or maybe they’re just too darned scared to go to the hospital?
Yet Ford’s consistently hyperbolic COVID modelling oracle sees “the province’s intensive care units to be filled beyond capacity by early February.” Granted, that’s actually a fair (and easy) prediction, considering that ICUs are often beyond capacity at this time of the year, as the CBC reported back in pre-COVID January 2019.
And, yes, I would also agree with Premier-Dictator Ford’s statement:
“We are in a crisis, that’s how I can describe it. It is scary. This is the most serious situation we’ve ever been in, ever, ever, since the beginning of this pandemic.”
If you don’t have a No More Lockdown sign on your front lawn yet, please, ask yourself why not? If you haven’t written your officials, why not? If haven’t lost friends speaking up against this evil, why not?
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John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, naturopaths and chiropractors. Since March 2020, he has been publishing the daily COVID-19(84) Red Pill Briefs; while writing articles that question and expose the contradictions in the COVID-19 narrative and control measures. He is also completing a novel, Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story. You can visit his website at MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca.
In December 2019, the Democratic Party initiated an impeachment process against Trump on two politicized counts with no merit.
Voting was almost entirely along party lines.
There were and remain justifiable reasons to impeach Trump and most of his predecessors — notably for their high crimes of war and against humanity by hot and/or other means.
Dems won’t tough these charges, or Republicans, because practically the entire Congress — earlier and now — and much of the bureaucracy share guilt.
Bogus charges in December 2019 included:
1. Abuse of power, falsely claiming he sought foreign interference from Ukraine in the US 2020 presidential election.
No credible evidence was presented because none existed.
Ukrainian President Zelensky debunked the accusation, publicly saying there was no Trump blackmail threat, no quid pro quo, no conspiracy, nothing discussed about withholding US aid for political reasons.
2. Obstruction of Congress, falsely claiming Trump “directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of representatives pursuant to its sole power of impeachment,” adding:
“(W)ithout lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed executive branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas.”
“President Trump thus interposed the powers of the presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House…”
Trump’s unwillingness to participate in the sham process did not rise to the level of obstructing Congress.
It was his legal right to challenge Dems by withholding cooperation because politicized proceedings lacked legitimacy.
So does impeachment 2.0.
Defying reality, it falsely claims that Trump “engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors by inciting violence against the government of the United States (sic),” adding:
He “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government (sic).”
“He threatened the integrity of the democratic system (sic), interfered with the peaceful transition of power (sic), and imperiled a coequal branch of government (sic).”
“He thereby betrayed his trust as president, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States (sic).”
Cold, hard facts refute all of the above.
Dems Jamie Raskin, David Cicilline, and Ted Lieu — in cahoots with Nancy Pelosi and over 200 other House Dems — introduced one article of impeachment.
Falsely charging Trump with inciting insurrection, his public remarks and tweets to supporters were polar opposite what’s falsely claimed.
No legitimate tribunal would accept the politicized accusation with no legitimacy.
No credible evidence supports it — just the opposite.
Yet impeachment is virtually certain in the Dem controlled House this week.
On Monday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer failed to cobble together a unanimously passed resolution that called for Pence to invoke 25th Amendment authority to remove Trump from office.
Adoption is expected on Tuesday by majority vote, politicized impeachment 2.0 to follow — despite transition of power occurring next week when Trump’s tenure ends.
Law Professor Jonathan Turley sharply criticized what’s going on, calling it Kafkaesque.
Wanting Trump removed from office for constitutionally protected speech has no legal standing.
Turley noted that similar remarks for which he’s falsely charged were made by Dems, saying:
“Take back the country.”
“Fight for the country.”
These remarks, similar ones, and those Trump publicly stated are protected speech under the First Amendment.
So are virtually all others — no matter how divergent from the official narrative, no matter how offensive to some people.
If Trump is removed from office for using protected speech in addressing supporters, all Americans are potentially threatened with recrimination.
The risk possible criminal prosecution for truth-telling exposure of government wrongdoing — the way Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and numerous whistleblowers were unacceptably mistreated.
If events unfold this way, tyranny will replace fundamental freedoms — the grim process well underway in the US already.
What’s going on should scare everyone. The issue isn’t Trump.
It’s whether policymaking conforms to the rule of law or operates extrajudicially against the American people, especially its truth-tellers on issues which matter most.
Without speech, media and academic freedoms, all other rights are threatened.
That’s the perilous state of today’s America — an open, free, and fair nation in name only, the real thing nowhere in sight.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
Anyone who believes locking President Donald Trump out of his social media accounts will serve as the first step on the path to healing the political divide in the United States is likely to be in for a bitter disappointment.
The flaws in this reasoning need to be peeled away, like the layers of an onion.
Twitter’s decision to permanently ban Trump for, among other things, “incitement of violence” effectively cuts him off from 88 million followers. Facebook has said it will deny Trump access to his account till at least the end of his presidential term.
The act of barring an elected president, even an outgoing one, from the digital equivalent of the public square is bound to be every bit as polarising as allowing him to continue tweeting.
These moves threaten to widen the tribal divide between the Democratic and Republican parties into a chasm, and open up a damaging rift among liberals and the left on the limits of political speech.
Claims of ‘stolen’ election
The proximate cause of Facebook and Twitter’s decision is his encouragement of a protest marchon Washington DC last week by his supporters that rapidly turned violent as hundreds stormed the Capitol building, the seat of the US government.
Five people are reported to have died, including a police officer struck on the head with a fire extinguisher and a woman who was shot dead inside the building, apparently by a security guard.
The protesters – and much of the Republican party – believe that Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, “stole” November’s presidential election. The storming of the Capitol occurred on the day electoral college votes were being counted, marking the moment when Biden’s win became irreversible.
Since the November election, Trump has cultivated his supporters’ political grievances by implying in regular tweets that the election was “rigged”, that he supposedly won by a “landslide”, and that Biden is an illegitimate president.
The social networks’ immediate fear appears to be that, should he be allowed to continue, there could be a repetition of the turmoil at the Capitol when the inauguration – the formal transfer of power from Trump to Biden – takes place next week.
No simple solutions
Whatever we – or the tech giants who now dominate our lives – might hope, there are no simple solutions to the problems caused by extreme political speech.
To many, banning Trump from Twitter – his main megaphone – sounds like a proportionate response to his incitement and his narcissistic behaviour. It appears to accord with a much-cited restriction on free speech: no one should be allowed to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre.
But that comparison serves only to blur important distinctions between ordinary speech and political speech.
The prohibition on shouting “Fire!” reflects a broad social consensus that giving voice to a falsehood of this kind – a lie that can be easily verified as such and one that has indisputably harmful outcomes – is a bad thing.
There is a clear way to calculate the benefits and losses of allowing this type of speech. It is certain to cause a stampede that risks injury and death – and at no gain, apart from possibly to the instigator’s ego.
It is also easy to determine how we should respond to someone who shouts “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. They should be prosecuted according to the law.
Who gets to decide
Banning political speech, by contrast, is a more complicated affair because there is rarely consensus on the legitimacy of such censorship, and – as we shall see – any gains are likely to be outweighed by the losses.
Trump’s ban is just the latest instance in a growing wave of exclusions by Twitter and Facebook of users who espouse political views outside the mainstream, whether on the right or the left. In addition, the tech giants have been tinkering with their algorithms to make it harder to find such content – in what amounts to a kind of pre-censorship.
But the critical issue in a democracy is: who gets to decide if political speech is unreasonable when it falls short of breaching hate and incitement laws?
Few of us want state institutions – the permanent bureaucracy, or the intelligence and security services – wielding that kind of power over our ability to comment and converse. These institutions, which lie at the heart of government and need to be scrutinised as fully as possible, have a vested interest in silencing critics.
There are equally good grounds to object to giving ruling parties the power to censor, precisely because government officials from one side of the political aisle have a strong incentive to gag their opponents. Incitement and protection of public order are perfect pretexts for authoritarianism.
And leaving the democratic majority with the power to arbitrate over political speech has major drawbacks too. In a liberal democracy, the right to criticise the majority and their representatives is an essential freedom, one designed to curb the majority’s tyrranical impulses and ensure minorities are protected.
‘Terms of service’
In this case, however, the ones deciding which users get to speak and which are banned are the globe-spanning tech corporations, the wealthiest companies in human history.
Facebook and Twitter have justified banning Trump, and anyone else, on the grounds that he violated vague business “terms of service” – the small print on agreement forms we all sign before being allowed access to their platforms.
But barring users from the chief means of communication in a modern, digitised world cannot be defended simply on commercial or business grounds, especially when those firms have been allowed to develop their respective monopolies by our governments.
Social media is now at the heart of many people’s political lives. It is how we share and clarify political views, organise political actions, and more generally shape the information universe.
The fact that western societies have agreed to let private hands control what should be essential public utilities – turning them into vastly profitable industries – is a political decision in itself.
Political pressures
Unlike governments, which have to submit to intermittent elections, tech giants are accountable chiefly to their billionaire owners and shareholders – a tiny wealth elite whose interests are tied to greater wealth accumulation, not the public good.
But in addition to these economic imperatives, the tech companies are also increasingly subjected to direct and indirect political pressures.
Sometimes that occurs out in the open, when Facebook executives get hauled before congressional committees to explain their actions. And doubtless pressure is being exerted too out of sight, behind closed doors.
Facebook, Twitter, Google and Apple all want their respective, highly profitable tech monopolies to continue, and currying favour with the party in power – or the one coming into power – is the best strategy for avoiding greater regulation.
Either way, it means that, in their role as gatekeepers to the global, digital public square, the tech giants exercise overtly political powers. They regulate an outsourced public utility, but are not subject to normal democratic oversight or accountability because their relationship with the state is veiled.
Censorship backfires
Banning Trump from social media, whatever the intention, will inevitably look like an act of political suppression to his supporters, to potential supporters and even to some critics who worry about the precedent being set.
In fact, to many it will smack of vengeful retaliation by the “elites”.
Consider these two issues. They may not seem relevant to some opponents but we can be sure they will fuel his supporters’ mounting sense of righteous indignation and grievance.
First, both the department of justice and the federal trade commission under Trump have opened anti-trust investigations of the major tech corporations to break up their monopolies. Last month the Trump administration initiated two anti-trust lawsuits – the first of their kind – specifically against Facebook.
Second, these tech giants have chosen to act against Trump now, just as Biden prepares to replace him in the White House. Silicon Valley was a generous funder of Biden’s election campaign and quickly won for itself positions in the incoming administration. The new president will decide whether to continue the anti-trust actions or drop them.
Whether these matters are connected or not, whether they are “fake news” or not, is beside the point. The decision by Facebook and Twitter to bar Trump from its platforms can easily be spun in his supporters’ minds as an opportunistic reprisal against Trump for his efforts to limit the excesses of these overweening tech empires.
This is a perfect illustration of why curbs on political speech – even of the most irresponsible kind – invariably backfire. Censorship of major politicians will always be contested and are likely to generate opposition and stoke resentment.
Banning Trump won’t end conspiracy theories on the American right. It will intensify them, reinforce them, embolden them.
Obnoxious symptom
So in the cost-beneft calculus, censoring Trump is almost certain to further polarise an already deeply divided American society, amplify genuine grievances and conspiracy theories alike, sow greater distrust towards political elites, further fracture an already broken political system and ultimately rationalise political violence.
The solution is not to crack down on political speech, even extreme and irresponsible speech, if it does not break the law. Trump is not the cause of US political woes, he is one obnoxious symptom.
The solution is to address the real causes, and tackle the only too justified resentments that fuelled Trump’s rise and will sustain him and the US right in defeat. Banning Trump – just like labelling his supporters “a basket of deplorables” – will prove entirely counter-productive.
Fixing a broken system
Meaningful reform will be no simple task. The US political system looks fundamentally broken – and has been for a long time.
It will require a much more transparent electoral system. Big donor money will have to be removed from Congressional and presidential races. Powerful lobbies will need to be ousted from Washington, where they now act as the primary authors of Congressional legislation promoting their own narrow interests.
The old and new media monopolies – the latter our new public square – will have to be broken up. New, publicly funded and publicly accountable media models must be developed that reflect a greater pluralism of views.
In these ways, the public can be encouraged to become more democratically engaged, active participants in their national and local politics rather than alienated onlookers or simple-minded cheerleaders. Politicians can be held truly accountable for their decisions, with an expectation that they serve the public interest, not the interests of the most powerful corporations.
The outcome of such reforms, as surveys of the American public’s preferences regularly show, would be much greater social and economic equality. Joblessness, home evictions and loss of medical cover would not stalk so many millions of Americans as they do now, during a pandemic. In this environment, the wider appeal of a demagogue like Trump would evaporate.
If this all sounds like pie-in-the-sky idealism, that in itself should serve as a wake-up call, highlighting just how far the US political system is from the liberal democracy it claims to be.
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Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
In honor of MLK day on the 18th of January, we repost this article that first appeared on GR in April 2018.
Martin Luther King Jr. 4 April 1967 Speech at Riverside Church, Upper Manhattan, New York. The speech was delivered on the same day (April 4, 1967) one year before MLK was killed on April 4, 1968.
We should carefully reflect on MLK’s message to the World.
MLK understood the relationship between America’s war agenda and social justice and civil rights in America. “No one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war.[Vietnam]”.
One cannot be a civil rights leader without taking a stance against U.S. led wars.
In the words of Martin Luther King: “Silence is Betrayal”.
Today with war hawks in the White House and the U.S. State department, America is leading a military adventure which in the real sense of the word threatens the future of humanity.
But this is not a talking point on network TV. Nor is it a concern of the “antiwar” movement. Meanwhile, the media is “killing the truth” either through distortion or omission.
Today we commemorate the passing of Martin Luther King who was assassinated in a high level conspiracy on the orders of key agencies of the US government (see text of Judgment).
Very few Americans are aware of the historical 1999 civil law suit of the King Family against the US Government. (Shelby County Court), Tennessee.
“After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In a press statement held the following day in Atlanta, Mrs. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict, saying, “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated our belief.”
“Making Money on War” is what motivated the killing of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. In the words of William Pepper (King Family Press Conference):
Because he took on those forces, powerful economic forces that dominated politics in this land, they killed him. He was killed because he could not be stopped. He was killed because they feared that half a million people would rise in revolution in the capitol of this country, and do what Mr. Jefferson said needed to be done every 20 years, to cleanse this land. This land has not been cleansed. This nation has not faced the problems that Martin Luther King, Jr. died trying to face and confront. They still exist today, the forces of evil, the powerful economic forces that dominate the government of this land and make money on war and deprive the poor of what is their right, their birthright. They still abound and they rule.
Decision of the Jury
“Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by
the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes.”
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, April 4, 2018
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Martin Luther King Jr. 4 April 1967 Speech at Riverside Church, Upper Manhattan, New York.
The speech was delivered on the same day (April 4, 1967) one year before MLK was killed on April 4, 1968.
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,
I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, some of the most distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course it’s always good to come back to Riverside Church. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it’s always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit.
I come to this great magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization that brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” “Peace and civil rights don’t mix,” they say. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?” they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church—the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate—leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.
I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans.
Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything on a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.
My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
For those who ask the question, “Aren’t you a civil rights leader?” and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957, when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: “To save the soul of America.” We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard from Harlem, who had written earlier:
O, yes, I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read “Vietnam.” It can never be saved so long as it destroys the hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that “America will be” are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.
As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954.* And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission, a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances.
But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men—for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?
Finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place, I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. Because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.
They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954—in 1945 rather—after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China—for whom the Vietnamese have no great love—but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.
For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.
After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed and Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all of this was presided over by United States influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem’s methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.
The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.
So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?
We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation’s only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.
Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call “fortified hamlets.” The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers.
Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation front, that strangely anonymous group we call “VC” or “communists”? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of “aggression from the North” as if there was nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.
How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only real party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of a new violence?
Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
The Vietnam War, writes Freeman, “must be remembered and condemned for the debacle it actually was.” (Image: vietnamfulldisclosure.org)
So, too, with Hanoi. In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western worlds, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led this nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French Commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a unified Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be considered.
Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops. They remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.
Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the north. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than eight hundred, or rather, eight thousand miles away from its shores.
At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called “enemy,” I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.
Surely this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroy, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.
This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:
Each day the war goes on the hatred increased in the hearts of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.
Unquote.
If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.
I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:
Number one: End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.
Number two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.
Three: Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.
Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government.
Five: Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement. [sustained applause]
Part of our ongoing [applause continues], part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary. Meanwhile [applause], meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.
As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our nation’s role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. [sustained applause] I am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. [applause] Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. [applause] These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.
Now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing.
The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality [applause], and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. [sustained applause] So such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.
In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.
It is with such activity that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” [applause] Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin [applause], we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see than an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. [applause]
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. [sustained applause]
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. [applause] War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy [applause], realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.
These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.
It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low [Audience:] (Yes); the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.”
A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.
This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another (Yes), for love is God. (Yes) And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. . . . If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.” Unquote.
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.”
We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:
Once to every man and nation comes a moment do decide,
In the strife of truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper, yet ‘tis truth alone is strong
Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. [sustained applause]
*
Note
*. King says “1954,” but most likely means 1964, the year he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests are used worldwide to “diagnose” Sars-Cov-2 infection. An in-depth investigation reveals clear scientific evidence proving that these tests are not accurate and create a statistically significant percentage of false positives. Positive results more likely indicate “ordinary respiratory diseases like the common cold.”
In fact, American biochemist Kary Mullis, now deceased, who won the Noble Prize in chemistry for creating PCR technology, repeatedly stated throughout his career that it should not be used to test for viruses. This technology is designed to replicate DNA sequences, not test for coronavirus infections.
Executive Action Required
President Trump must take immediate action to investigate and hold members of the FDA, CDC and WHO accountable for scientific fraud and Crimes Against the Humanity.
If he does not take immediate action, he is thereby complicit in what clearly amounts to Crimes Against Humanity, as this report will detail.
Multiple U.S. Intelligence Community contacts have verified the accuracy of the extensive investigative report, conducted by award-winning journalist Torsten Engelbrecht, featured below. While they do take issue with some of the reports verbiage, they corroborate the main findings: PCR tests should not be relied upon for accurate results and create a significant percentage of false positives.
We also feature a New York Times report from 2007, entitled, “Faith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic That Wasn’t,” which also clearly reveals how scientifically inaccurate PCR tests are, featuring many shocking statements from medical experts on the use of these tests, clearly laying out how they result in false positives and lead to dangerous exaggerations and false alarms.
Note: We are NOT reporting that the coronavirus is a hoax. You should take precautions and consult your doctor for best safety practices.
We are reporting, as the evidence reveals, that the number of COVID-positive results and the number of COVID-related deaths have been significantly exaggerated.
Based on our findings, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration should not be trusted or relied upon for accurate information, and needs to be immediately investigated and held accountable for Crimes Against Humanity.
*
Before reading Engelbrecht’s investigation into the science that proves how fraudulent “COVID-19 testing” is, let’s recap the overall state of what can accurately be defined as an “attack” on us.
For your family’s sake, please do not instinctively dismiss any of these facts. Please read this entire post before it gets deleted by corrupt censors.
Fact 1) As thousands of Doctors worldwide have proven, there are several effective treatments for this coronavirus. (source one, two, three, four, five, six)
Fact 2) The effective treatments have been censored and suppressed for reasons including but not limited to:
a) They are inexpensive, i.e. Big Pharma can’t profit off of them;
b) They completely derail the wider-agenda of those interests who are exploiting this virus to implement the most oppressive economic, “health” and surveillance system ever;
c) There is an FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) law which only allows the mass “vaccination” program to continue if there are no other effective treatments. There is also a EUA “National Security” stipulation that requires a significant percentage of the population to be at risk of death, which is another reason why fraudulent false-positive testing is being used, as you will see below. (source)
For all of these reasons, the effective treatments have been suppressed; leading to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people.
Fact 3) The handling of this virus has resulted in an all-out economic disaster that has destroyed the livelihood and financial security of billions of people worldwide, leading to unprecedented rates of debt, depression, drug abuse, overdoses and suicides. Meanwhile, the CARES Act and global central banking operations in response to this “crisis” have resulted in an unprecedented consolidation of wealth by the world’s richest 0.01%. (source one, two, three, four)
Fact 4) The lockdown, quarantine and closer of schools, religious services, sports, recreational activities, social events, shopping, food and workplaces, along with social distancing measures and mandatory mask use, in combination with criminally negligent 24/7 mainstream media virus fear propaganda, amounts to psychological torture and abuse on an unprecedented scale, which has torn apart and separated many families, and has done significant damage to the psychological wellbeing of billions of people, particularly young children, worldwide. (source)
Fact 5) Underfunded and cash-strapped hospitals have been financially incentivized to record as many COVID-related deaths as possible, resulting in a statistically significant number of falsely reported COVID-related deaths. On top of that, hospitals have also been heavily incentivized to put people on ventilators, which has also contributed to thousands of additional unnecessary deaths. (source one, two)
*
Now that we have a better understanding of the overall situation, of the Crimes Against Humanity that have been strategically implemented thus far, let’s look at the science that reveals the fraudulent testing process. Here’s is Torsten Engelbrecht’s report:
Though the whole world relies on RT-PCR to “diagnose” Sars-Cov-2 infection, the science is clear: they are not fit for purpose.
Lockdowns and hygienic measures around the world are based on numbers of cases and mortality rates created by the SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests used to identify “positive” patients, whereby “positive” is usually equated with “infected.”
However, when looking closely at the facts, the conclusion is that these PCR tests are meaningless as a diagnostic tool to determine an alleged infection by SARS-CoV-2.
Unfounded “Test, test, test” Mantra
At the media briefing on COVID-19 on March 16, 2020, the WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said:
“We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.”
The message was spread through headlines around the world, for instance by Reuters and the BBC.
Still on May 3, the moderator of the Heute Journal — one of the most important news magazines on German television — was passing the mantra of the corona dogma on to his audience with the admonishing words:
“Test, test, test — that is the credo at the moment, and it is the only way to really understand how much the coronavirus is spreading.”
This indicates that the belief in the validity of the PCR tests is so strong that it equals a religion that tolerates virtually no contradiction.
As Walter Lippmann, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and perhaps the most influential journalist of the 20th century said: “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”
So to start, it is very remarkable that Kary Mullis himself, the inventor of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technology, did not think alike. His invention got him the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1993.
Unfortunately, Mullis passed away last year at the age of 74, but there is no doubt that the biochemist regarded the PCR as inappropriate to detect a viral infection.
The reason is that the intended use of the PCR was, and still is, to apply it as a manufacturing technique, being able to replicate DNA sequences millions and billions of times, and not as a diagnostic tool to detect viruses.
How declaring virus pandemics based on PCR tests can end in disaster was described by Gina Kolata in her 2007 New York Times article, “Faith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic That Wasn’t.” (full article below)
Lack of a valid gold standard
Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the PCR tests used to identify so-called COVID-19 patients presumably infected by what is called SARS-CoV-2 do not have a valid gold standard to compare them with.
This is a fundamental point. Tests need to be evaluated to determine their preciseness — strictly speaking their “sensitivity” [1] and “specificity” — by comparison with a “gold standard,” meaning the most accurate method available.
As an example, for a pregnancy test the gold standard would be the pregnancy itself. As Australian infectious diseases specialist Sanjaya Senanayake, for example, stated in an ABC TV interview in an answer to the question “How accurate is the [COVID-19] testing?”:
“If we had a new test for picking up [the bacterium] golden staph in blood, we’ve already got blood cultures, that’s our gold standard we’ve been using for decades, and we could match this new test against that. But for COVID-19 we don’t have a gold standard test.”
Jessica C. Watson from Bristol University confirms this. In her paper “Interpreting a COVID-19 test result,” published recently in The British Medical Journal, she writes that there is a “lack of such a clear-cut ‘gold-standard’ for COVID-19 testing.”
But instead of classifying the tests as unsuitable for SARS-CoV-2 detection and COVID-19 diagnosis, or instead of pointing out that only a virus, proven through isolation and purification, can be a solid gold standard, Watson claims in all seriousness that, “pragmatically” COVID-19 diagnosis itself, remarkably including PCR testing itself, “may be the best available ‘gold standard.'” But this is not scientifically sound.
Apart from the fact that it is downright absurd to take the PCR test itself as part of the gold standard to evaluate the PCR test, there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, as even people such as Thomas Löscher, former head of the Department of Infection and Tropical Medicine at the University of Munich and member of the Federal Association of German Internists, conceded to us. [2]
If there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, COVID-19 diagnosis — contrary to Watson’s statement — cannot be suitable for serving as a valid gold standard.
In addition, “experts” such as Watson overlook the fact that only virus isolation, i.e. an unequivocal virus proof, can be the gold standard.
That is why I asked Watson how COVID-19 diagnosis “may be the best available gold standard,” if there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, and also whether the virus itself, that is virus isolation, wouldn’t be the best available/possible gold standard, but she hasn’t answered these questions yet – despite multiple requests. She has not yet responded to our rapid response post on her article in which we address exactly the same points, either, though she wrote us on June 2nd: “I will try to post a reply later this week when I have a chance.”
[She never replied.]
No proof for the RNA being of viral origin
Now the question is: What is required first for virus isolation/proof? We need to know where the RNA for which the PCR tests are calibrated comes from.
As textbooks (e.g., White/Fenner. Medical Virology, 1986, p. 9) as well as leading virus researchers such as Luc Montagnier or Dominic Dwyer state, particle purification — i.e. the separation of an object from everything else that is not that object, as for instance Nobel laureate Marie Curie purified 100 mg of radium chloride in 1898 by extracting it from tons of pitchblende — is an essential pre-requisite for proving the existence of a virus, and thus to prove that the RNA from the particle in question comes from a new virus.
The reason for this is that PCR is extremely sensitive, which means it can detect even the smallest pieces of DNA or RNA — but it cannot determine where these particles came from. That has to be determined beforehand.
Because the PCR tests are calibrated for gene sequences (in this case RNA sequences because SARS-CoV-2 is believed to be a RNA virus), we have to know that these gene snippets are part of the looked-for virus. And to know that, correct isolation and purification of the presumed virus has to be executed.
Hence, we have asked the science teams of the relevant papers which are referred to in the context of SARS-CoV-2 for proof whether the electron-microscopic shots depicted in their in vitro experiments show purified viruses.
But not a single team could answer that question with “yes” — and nobody said purification was not a necessary step. We only got answers like “No, we did not obtain an electron micrograph showing the degree of purification.”
We asked several study authors “Do your electron micrographs show the purified virus?”, they gave the following responses:
Study 1: Leo L. M. Poon; Malik Peiris. “Emergence of a novel human coronavirus threatening human health,” Nature Medicine, March 2020
Replying Author: Malik Peiris
Date: May 12, 2020
Answer: “The image is the virus budding from an infected cell. It is not purified virus.”
Study 2: Myung-Guk Han et al. “Identification of Coronavirus Isolated from a Patient in Korea with COVID-19,” Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives, February 2020
Replying Author: Myung-Guk Han
Date: May 6, 2020
Answer: “We could not estimate the degree of purification because we do not purify and concentrate the virus cultured in cells.”
Study 3: Wan Beom Park et al. “Virus Isolation from the First Patient with SARS-CoV-2 in Korea,” Journal of Korean Medical Science, February 24, 2020
Replying Author: Wan Beom Park
Date: March 19, 2020
Answer: “We did not obtain an electron micrograph showing the degree of purification.”
Study 4: Na Zhu et al., “A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China,” 2019, New England Journal of Medicine, February 20, 2020
Replying Author: Wenjie Tan
Date: March 18, 2020
Answer: “[We show] an image of sedimented virus particles, not purified ones.”
Regarding the mentioned papers it is clear that what is shown in the electron micrographs (EMs) is the end result of the experiment, meaning there is no other result that they could have made EMs from.
That is to say, if the authors of these studies concede that their published EMs do not show purified particles, then they definitely do not possess purified particles claimed to be viral.
[In this context, it has to be remarked that some researchers use the term “isolation” in their papers, but the procedures described therein do not represent a proper isolation (purification) process. Consequently, in this context the term “isolation” is misused.]
Thus, the authors of four of the principal, early 2020 papers claiming discovery of a new coronavirus concede they had no proof that the origin of the virus genome was viral-like particles or cellular debris, pure or impure, or particles of any kind. In other words, the existence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA is based on faith, not fact.
We have also contacted Dr Charles Calisher, who is a seasoned virologist. In 2001, Science published an “impassioned plea… to the younger generation” from several veteran virologists, among them Calisher, saying that:
[Modern virus detection methods like] “sleek polymerase chain reaction… tell little or nothing about how a virus multiplies, which animals carry it, [or] how it makes people sick. [It is] like trying to say whether somebody has bad breath by looking at his fingerprint..” [3]
And that’s why we asked Dr Calisher whether he knows one single paper in which SARS-CoV-2 has been isolated and finally really purified. His answer:
“I know of no such a publication. I have kept an eye out for one.” [4]
This actually means that one cannot conclude that the RNA gene sequences, which the scientists took from the tissue samples prepared in the mentioned in vitro trials and for which the PCR tests are finally being “calibrated,” belong to a specific virus — in this case SARS-CoV-2.
In addition, there is no scientific proof that those RNA sequences are the causative agent of what is called COVID-19.
In order to establish a causal connection, one way or the other, i.e. beyond virus isolation and purification, it would have been absolutely necessary to carry out an experiment that satisfies the four Koch’s postulates. But there is no such experiment, as Amory Devereux and Rosemary Frei recently revealed for OffGuardian.
The necessity to fulfill these postulates regarding SARS-CoV-2 is demonstrated not least by the fact that attempts have been made to fulfill them. But even researchers claiming they have done it, in reality, did not succeed.
One example is a study published in Nature on May 7. This trial, besides other procedures which render the study invalid, did not meet any of the postulates.
For instance, the alleged “infected” laboratory mice did not show any relevant clinical symptoms clearly attributable to pneumonia, which according to the third postulate should actually occur if a dangerous and potentially deadly virus was really at work there. The slight bristles and weight loss, which were observed temporarily in the animals are negligible, not only because they could have been caused by the procedure itself, but also because the weight went back to normal again.
Also, no animal died except those they killed to perform the autopsies. And let’s not forget: These experiments should have been done before developing a test, which is not the case.
Revealingly, none of the leading German representatives of the official theory about SARS-Cov-2/COVID-19 — the Robert Koch-Institute (RKI), Alexander S. Kekulé (University of Halle), Hartmut Hengel and Ralf Bartenschlager (German Society for Virology), the aforementioned Thomas Löscher, Ulrich Dirnagl (Charité Berlin) or Georg Bornkamm (virologist and professor emeritus at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Munich) — could answer the following question:
If the particles that are claimed to be to be SARS-CoV-2 have not been purified, how do you want to be sure that the RNA gene sequences of these particles belong to a specific new virus?
Particularly, if there are studies showing that substances such as antibiotics that are added to the test tubes in the in vitro experiments carried out for virus detection can “stress” the cell culture in a way that new gene sequences are being formed that were not previously detectable — an aspect that Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock already drew attention to in her Nobel Lecture back in 1983.
It should not go unmentioned that we finally got the Charité – the employer of Christian Drosten, Germany’s most influential virologist in respect of COVID-19, advisor to the German government and co-developer of the PCR test, which was the first to be “accepted” (not validated!) by the WHO worldwide – to answer questions on the topic.
But we didn’t get answers until June 18, 2020, after months of non-response. In the end, we achieved it only with the help of Berlin lawyer Viviane Fischer.
Regarding our question: “Has the Charité convinced itself that appropriate particle purification was carried out?,” the Charité concedes that they didn’t use purified particles.
Although they claim “virologists at the Charité are sure that they are testing for the virus,” in their paper (Corman et al.) they state:
“RNA was extracted from clinical samples with the MagNA Pure 96 system (Roche, Penzberg, Germany) and from cell culture supernatants with the viral RNA mini kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany).”
That means they just assumed the RNA was viral.
Incidentally, the Corman et al. paper, published on January 23, 2020 didn’t even go through a proper peer review process, nor were the procedures outlined therein accompanied by controls — although it is only through these two things that scientific work becomes really solid.
Irrational test results
It is also certain that we cannot know the false positive rate of the PCR tests without widespread testing of people who certainly do not have the virus, proven by a method which is independent of the test (having a solid gold standard).
Therefore, it is hardly surprising that there are several papers illustrating irrational test results.
For example, already in February the health authority in China’s Guangdong province reported that people have fully recovered from illness blamed on COVID-19, started to test “negative,” and then tested “positive” again.
A month later, a paper published in the Journal of Medical Virology showed that 29 out of 610 patients at a hospital in Wuhan had 3 to 6 test results that flipped between “negative,” “positive” and “dubious.”
A third example is a study from Singapore in which tests were carried out almost daily on 18 patients. The majority went from “positive” to “negative” back to “positive” at least once, and up to five times in one patient.
Even Wang Chen, president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, conceded in February that the PCR tests are “only 30 to 50 per cent accurate;” while Sin Hang Lee from the Milford Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory sent a letter to the WHO’s coronavirus response team and to Anthony Fauci on March 22, 2020, saying that:
“It has been widely reported that the RT-qPCR [Reverse Transcriptase quantitative PCR] test kits used to detect SARSCoV-2 RNA in human specimens are generating many false positive results and are not sensitive enough to detect some real positive cases.”
In other words, even if we theoretically assume that these PCR tests can really detect a viral infection, the tests would be practically worthless, and would only cause an unfounded scare among the “positive” people tested.
This becomes also evident considering the positive predictive value (PPV).
The PPV indicates the probability that a person with a positive test result is truly “positive” (ie. has the supposed virus), and it depends on two factors: the prevalence of the virus in the general population and the specificity of the test, that is the percentage of people without disease in whom the test is correctly “negative” (a test with a specificity of 95% incorrectly gives a positive result in 5 out of 100 non-infected people).
With the same specificity, the higher the prevalence, the higher the PPV.
In this context, on June 12 2020, the journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt published an article in which the PPV has been calculated with three different prevalence scenarios.
The results must, of course, be viewed very critically, first because it is not possible to calculate the specificity without a solid gold standard, as outlined, and second because the calculations in the article are based on the specificity determined in the study by Jessica Watson, which is potentially worthless, as also mentioned.
But if you abstract from it, assuming that the underlying specificity of 95% is correct and that we know the prevalence, even the mainstream medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt reports that the SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests may have “a shockingly low” PPV.
In one of the three scenarios, figuring with an assumed prevalence of 3%, the PPV was only 30 percent, which means that 70 percent of the people tested “positive” are not “positive” at all. Yet “they are prescribed quarantine,” as even the Ärzteblatt notes critically….
All this fits with the fact that the CDC and the FDA, for instance, concede in their files that the “SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests” are not suitable for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.
“Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms.”
And:
“This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.”
And the FDA admits that: “positive results… do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease.”
Remarkably, in the instruction manuals of PCR tests we can also read that they are not intended as a diagnostic test, as for instance in those by Altona Diagnostics and Creative Diagnostics. [5]
To quote another one, in the product announcement of the LightMix Modular Assays produced by TIB Molbiol — which were developed using the Corman et al. protocol — and distributed by Roche, we read:
“These assays are not intended for use as an aid in the diagnosis of coronavirus infection.”
And:
“For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.”
Where is the evidence that the tests can measure the “viral load”?
There is also reason to conclude that the PCR test from Roche and others cannot even detect the targeted genes.
Moreover, in the product descriptions of the RT-qPCR tests for SARS-COV-2 it says they are “qualitative” tests, contrary to the fact that the “q” in “qPCR” stands for “quantitative.”
If these tests are not “quantitative” tests, they don’t show how many viral particles are in the body.
That is crucial because, in order to even begin talking about actual illness in the real world not only in a laboratory, the patient would need to have millions and millions of viral particles actively replicating in their body.
That is to say, the CDC, WHO, FDA or the RKI may assert that the tests can measure the so-called “viral load,” i.e. how many viral particles are in the body. “But this has never been proven. That is an enormous scandal,” as the journalist Jon Rappoport points out.
This is not only because the term “viral load” is deception. If you put the question, “What is viral load?”, at a dinner party, people take it to mean viruses circulating in the bloodstream. They’re surprised to learn it’s actually RNA molecules.
Also, to prove beyond any doubt that the PCR can measure how much a person is “burdened” with a disease-causing virus, the following experiment would have had to be carried out, which has not happened yet:
You take, let’s say, a few hundred or even thousand people and remove tissue samples from them. Make sure the people who take the samples do not perform the test. The testers will never know who the patients are and what condition they’re in.
The testers run their PCR on the tissue samples. In each case, they say which virus they found and how much of it they found.
Then, for example, in patients 29, 86, 199, 272, and 293 they found a great deal of what they claim is a virus. Now we un-blind those patients. They should all be sick, because they have so much virus replicating in their bodies. But are they really sick — or are they fit as a fiddle?
With the help of the aforementioned lawyer Viviane Fischer, I finally got the Charité to answer the question of whether the test developed by Corman et al. — the so-called “Drosten PCR test” — is a quantitative test.
But the Charité was not willing to answer this question “yes.” Instead, the Charité wrote:
“If real-time RT-PCR is involved, to the knowledge of the Charité in most cases these are… limited to qualitative detection.”
Furthermore, the “Drosten PCR test” uses the unspecific E-gene assay as preliminary assay, while the Institut Pasteur uses the same assay as confirmatory assay.
According to Corman et al., the E-gene assay is likely to detect all Asian viruses, while the other assays in both tests are supposed to be more specific for sequences labelled “SARS-CoV-2.”
Besides the questionable purpose of having either a preliminary or a confirmatory test that is likely to detect all Asian viruses, at the beginning of April the WHO changed the algorithm, recommending that from then on a test can be regarded as “positive” even if just the E-gene assay (which is likely to detect all Asian viruses!) gives a “positive” result.
This means that a confirmed unspecific test result is officially sold as specific.
That change of algorithm increased the “case” numbers. Tests using the E-gene assay are produced for example by Roche, TIB Molbiol and R-Biopharm.
High CQ values make the test results even more meaningless
Another essential problem is that many PCR tests have a “cycle quantification” (Cq) value of over 35, and some, including the “Drosten PCR test,” even have a Cq of 45.
The Cq value specifies how many cycles of DNA replication are required to detect a real signal from biological samples.
“Cq values higher than 40 are suspect because of the implied low efficiency and generally should not be reported,” as it says in the MIQE guidelines.
MIQE stands for “Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments,” a set of guidelines that describe the minimum information necessary for evaluating publications on Real-Time PCR, also called quantitative PCR, or qPCR.
The inventor himself, Kary Mullis, agreed, when he stated:
“If you have to go more than 40 cycles to amplify a single-copy gene, there is something seriously wrong with your PCR.”
The MIQE guidelines have been developed under the aegis of Stephen A. Bustin, Professor of Molecular Medicine, a world-renowned expert on quantitative PCR and author of the book A-Z of Quantitative PCR, which has been called “the bible of qPCR.”
In a recent podcast interview Bustin points out that “the use of such arbitrary Cq cut-offs is not ideal, because they may be either too low (eliminating valid results) or too high (increasing false “positive” results).”
According to him, a Cq in the 20s to 30s should be aimed at, and there is concern regarding the reliability of the results for any Cq over 35.
If the Cq value gets too high, it becomes difficult to distinguish real signal from background, for example due to reactions of primers and fluorescent probes, and hence there is a higher probability of false positives.
Moreover, among other factors that can alter the result, before starting with the actual PCR, in case you are looking for presumed RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, the RNA must be converted to complementary DNA (cDNA) with the enzyme Reverse Transcriptase — hence the “RT” at the beginning of “PCR” or “qPCR.”
But this transformation process is “widely recognized as inefficient and variable,” as Jessica Schwaber from the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine in Toronto and two research colleagues pointed out in a 2019 paper.
Stephen A. Bustin acknowledges problems with PCR in a comparable way.
For example, he pointed to the problem that in the course of the conversion process (RNA to cDNA) the amount of DNA obtained with the same RNA base material can vary widely, even by a factor of 10 (see above interview).
Considering that the DNA sequences get doubled at every cycle, even a slight variation becomes magnified and can thus alter the result, annihilating the test’s reliable informative value.
So how can it be that those who claim the PCR tests are highly meaningful for so-called COVID-19 diagnosis blind out the fundamental inadequacies of these tests — even if they are confronted with questions regarding their validity?
Certainly, the apologists of the novel coronavirus hypothesis should have dealt with these questions before throwing the tests on the market and putting basically the whole world under lockdown, not least because these are questions that come to mind immediately for anyone with even a spark of scientific understanding.
Thus, the thought inevitably emerges that financial and political interests play a decisive role for this ignorance about scientific obligations. NB, the WHO, for example has financial ties with drug companies, as the British Medical Journal showed in 2010.
Experts criticize “that the notorious corruption and conflicts of interest at WHO have continued, even grown” since then. The CDC as well, to take another big player, is obviously no better off.
Finally, the reasons and possible motives remain speculative, and many involved surely act in good faith; but the science is clear: The numbers generated by these RT-PCR tests do not in the least justify frightening people who have been tested “positive” and imposing lockdown measures that plunge countless people into poverty and despair or even drive them to suicide.
A “positive” result may have serious consequences for the patients as well, because then all non-viral factors are excluded from the diagnosis and the patients are treated with highly toxic drugs and invasive intubations.
Especially for elderly people and patients with pre-existing conditions such a treatment can be fatal, as we have outlined in the article “Fatal Therapie.”
Without doubt excess mortality rates are caused by the therapy and by the lockdown measures, while the “COVID-19” death statistics comprise also patients who died of a variety of diseases, redefined as COVID-19 only because of a “positive” test result whose value could not be more doubtful.
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Notes
[1] Sensitivity is defined as the proportion of patients with disease in whom the test is positive; and specificity is defined as the proportion of patients without disease in whom the test is negative.
[2] E-mail from Prof. Thomas Löscher from March 6, 2020
[3] Martin Enserink. Virology. Old guard urges virologists to go back to basics, Science, July 6, 2001, p. 24
[4] E-mail from Charles Calisher from May 10, 2020
Imagine, you are living in a world that you are told is a democracy – and you may even believe it – but in fact your life and fate is in the hands of a few ultra-rich, ultra-powerful and ultra-inhuman oligarchs. They may be called Deep State, or simply the Beast, or anything else obscure or untraceable – it doesn’t matter. They are less than the 0.0001%.
For lack of a better expression, let’s call them for now “obscure individuals”.
These obscure individuals who pretend running our world have never been elected. We don’t need to name them. You will figure out who they are, and why they are famous, and some of them totally invisible. They have created structures, or organisms without any legal format. They are fully out of international legality. They are a forefront for the Beast. Maybe there are several competing Beasts. But they have the same objective: A New or One World Order (NWO, or OWO).
These obscure individuals are running, for example, The World Economic Forum (WEF – representing Big Industry, Big Finance and Big Fame), the Group of 7 – G7, the Group of 20 – G20 (the leaders of the economically” strongest” nations). There are also some lesser entities, called the Bilderberg Society, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Chatham House and more.
The members of all of them are overlapping. Even this expanded forefront combined represents less than 0.001%. They all have superimposed themselves over sovereign national elected and constitutional governments, and over THE multinational world body, the United Nations, the UN.
In fact, they have coopted the UN to do their bidding. UN Director Generals, as well as the DGs of the multiple UN-suborganizations, are chosen mostly by the US, with the consenting nod of their European vassals – according to the candidate’s political and psychological profile. If his or her ‘performance’ as head of the UN or head of one of the UN suborganizations fails, his or her days are counted. Coopted or created by the Beast(s) are also, the European Union, the Bretton Woods Organizations, World Bank and IMF, as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO) – and – make no mistake – the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. It has no teeth. Just to make sure the law is always on the side of the lawless.
In addition to the key international financial institutions, WB and IMF, there are the so-called regional development banks and similar financial institutions, keeping the countries of their respective regions in check.
In the end its financial or debt-economy that controls everything. Western neoliberal banditry has created a system, where political disobedience can be punished by economic oppression or outright theft of national assets in international territories. The system’s common denominator is the (still) omnipresent US-dollar.
“Unelected Individuals”
The supremacy of these obscure unelected individuals becomes ever more exposed. We, the People consider it “normal” that they call the shots, not what we call – or once were proud of calling, our sovereign nations and sovereignly elected governments. They have become a herd of obedient sheep. The Beast has gradually and quietly taken over. We haven’t noticed. It’s the salami tactic: You cut off slice by tiny slice and when the salami is gone, you realize that you have nothing left, that your freedom, your civil and human rights are gone. By then it’s too late. Case in point is the US Patriot Act. It was prepared way before 9/11. Once 9/11 “happened”, the Patriot Legislation was whizzed through Congress in no time – for the people’s future protection – people called for it for fear – and – bingo, the Patriot Act took about 90% of the American population’s freedom and civil rights away. For good.
We have become enslaved to the Beast. The Beast calls the shots on boom or bust of our economies, on who should be shackled by debt, when and where a pandemic should break out, and on the conditions of surviving the pandemic, for example, social confinement. And to top it all off – the instruments the Beast uses, very cleverly, are a tiny-tiny invisible enemy, called a virus, and a huge but also invisible monster, called FEAR. That keeps us off the street, off reunions with our friends, and off our social entertainment, theatre, sports, or a picnic in the park.
Soon the Beast will decide who will live and who will die, literally – if we let it. This may be not far away. Another wave of pandemic and people may beg, yell and scream for a vaccine, for their death knell, and for the super bonanza of Big Pharma – and towards the objectives of the eugenicists blatantly roaming the world – see this. There is still time to collectively say NO. Collectively and solidarily.
Take the latest case of blatant imposture. Conveniently, after the first wave of Covid-19 had passed, at least in the Global North, where the major world decisions are made, in early June 2020, the unelected WEF Chairman, Klaus Schwab, announced “The Great Reset”. Taking advantage of the economic collapse – the crisis shock, as in “The Shock Doctrine” – Mr. Schwab, one of the Beast’s frontrunners, announces openly what the WEF will discuss and decide for the world-to-come in their next Davos Forum in January 2021. For more details see this.
Will, We, The People, accept the agenda of the unelected WEF?
It will opportunely focus on the protection of what’s left of Mother Earth; obviously at the center will be man-made CO2-based “Global Warming”. The instrument for that protection of nature and humankind will be the UN Agenda 2030 – which equals the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It will focus on how to rebuild the willfully destroyed global economy, while respecting the (“green”) principles of the 17 SDGs.
Mind you, it’s all connected. There are no coincidences. The infamous Agenda 2021 which coincides with and complements the so-called (UN) Agenda 2030, will be duly inaugurated by the WEF’s official declaration of The Great Reset, in January 2021. Similarly, the implementation of the agenda of The Great Reset began in January 2020, by the launch of the corona pandemic – planned for decades with the latest visible events being the 2010 Rockefeller Report with its “Lockstep Scenario”, and Event 201, of 18 October in NYC which computer-simulated a corona pandemic, leaving within 18 months 65 million deaths and an economy in ruin, programmed just a few weeks before the launch of the actual corona pandemic. See COVID-19, We Are Now Living the “Lock Step Scenario”and this and this.
The Race Riots
The racial riots, initiated by the movement Black Lives Matter (funded by the Ford Foundation and Soros’ Open Society Foundation), following the brutal assassination of the Afro-American George Floyd by a gang of Minneapolis police, and spreading like brush-fire in no time to more than 160 cities, first in the US, then in Europe – are not only connected to the Beast’s agenda, but they were a convenient deviation from the human catastrophe left behind by Covid-19. See also this.
The Beast’s nefarious plan to implement what’s really behind the UN Agenda 2030 is the little heard-of Agenda ID2020. See The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic: The Real Danger is “Agenda ID2020”. It has been created and funded by the vaccination guru Bill Gates, and so has GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations), the association of Big Pharma – involved in creating the corona vaccines, and which funds along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) a major proportion of WHO’s budget.
Following the official path of the UN Agenda 2030 of achieving the SDGs, the ‘implementing’ Agenda ID2020 – which is currently being tested on school children in Bangladesh – will provide digitized IDs possibly in the form of nano-chips implanted along with compulsory vaccination programs, will promote digitization of money and the rolling out of 5G – which would be needed to upload and monitor personal data on the nano chips and to control the populace. Agenda ID2020 will most likely also include ‘programs’ – through vaccination? – of significantly reducing world population. Eugenics is an important component in the control of future world population under a NOW / OWO – see also Georgia Guidestones, mysteriously built in 1980.
The ruling elite used the lockdown as an instrument to carry out this agenda. Its implementation would naturally face massive protests, organized and funded along the same lines as were the BLM protests and demonstrations. They may not be peaceful – and may not be planned as being peaceful. Because to control the population in the US and in Europe, where most of the civil unrest would be expected, a total militarization of the people is required. This is well under preparation.
In his essay “The Big Plantation”, John Steppling reports from a NYT article that a
“minimum of 93,763 machine guns, 180,718 magazine cartridges, hundreds of silencers and an unknown number of grenade launchers have been provided to state and local police departments in the US since 2006. This is in addition to at least 533 planes and helicopters, and 432 MRAPs — 9-foot high, 30-ton Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles with gun turrets and more than 44,900 pieces of night vision equipment, regularly used in nighttime raids in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
He adds that this militarization is part of a broader trend. Since the late 1990s, about 89 percent of police departments in the United States serving populations of 50,000 people or more had a PPU (Police Paramilitary Unit), almost double of what existed in the mid-1980s. He refers to these militarized police as the new Gestapo.
Even before Covid, about 15% to 20% of the population was on or below the poverty line in the United States. The post-covid lockdown economic annihilation will at least double that percentage – and commensurately increase the risk for civil turbulence and clashes with authorities – further enhancing the reasoning for a militarized police force.
China’s Crypto RMB
None of these scenarios will, of course, be presented to the public by the WEF in January 2021. These are decisions taken behind closed doors by the key actors for the Beast. However, this grandiose plan of the Great Reset does not have to happen. There is at least half the world population and some of the most powerful countries, economically and militarily – like China and Russia – opposed to it. “Reset” maybe yes, but not in these western terms. In fact, a reset of kinds is already happening with China about to roll out a new People’s Bank of China backed blockchain-based cryptocurrency, the crypto RMB, or yuan. This is not only a hard currency based on a solid economy, it is also supported by gold.
While President Trump keeps trashing China for unfair trade, for improperly managing the covid pandemic, for stealing property rights – China bashing no end – that China depends on the US and that the US will cut trading ties with China – or cut ties altogether, China is calling Trump’s bluff. China is quietly reorienting herself towards the ASEAN countries plus Japan (yes, Japan!) and South Korea, where trade already today accounts for about 15% of all China’s trade and is expected to double in the next five years.
Despite the lockdown and the disruption of trade, China’s overall exports recovered with a 3.2% increase in April (in relation to April 2019). This overall performance in China exports was nonetheless accompanied by a dramatic decline in US-China trade. China exports to the US decreased by 7.9% in April (in relation to April 2019).
It is clear that the vast majority of US industries could not survive without Chinese supply chains. The western dependence on Chinese medical supplies is particularly strong. Let alone Chinese dependence by US consumers. In 2019, US total consumption, about 70% of GDP, amounted to $13.3 trillion, of which a fair amount is directly imported from China or dependent on ingredients from China.
The WEF-masters are confronted with a real dilemma. Their plan depends very much on the dollar supremacy which would continue to allow dishing out sanctions and confiscating assets from those countries opposing US rule; a dollar-hegemony which would allow imposing the components of The Great Reset scheme, as described above.
At present, the dollar is fiat money, debt-money created from thin air. It has no backing whatsoever. Therefore, its worth as a reserve currency is increasingly decaying, especially vis-à-vis the new crypto-yuan from China. In order to compete with the Chinese yuan, the US Government would have to move away from its monetary Ponzi-scheme, by separating itself from the 1913 Federal Reserve Act and print her own US-economy- and possibly gold-backed (crypto) money – not fiat FED-money, as is the case today. That would mean cutting the more than 100-year old ties to the Rothschild and Co. clan-owned FED, and creating a real peoples-owned central bank. Not impossible, but highly improbable. Here, two Beasts might clash, as world power is at stake.
Meanwhile, China, with her philosophy of endless creation would continue forging ahead unstoppably with her mammoth socioeconomic development plan of the 21st Century, the Belt and Road Initiative, connecting and bridging the world with infrastructure for land and maritime transport, with joint research and industrial projects, cultural exchanges – and not least, multinational trade with “win-win” characteristics, equality for all partners – towards a multi-polar world, towards a world with a common future for mankind.
Today already more than 120 countries are associated with BRI – and the field is wide open for others to join – and to defy, unmask and unplug The Great Reset of the West.
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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO); RT; Countercurrents, Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press; The Saker Blog, the and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
While many people take the opportunity to treat Martin’s life as a pre-packaged hallmark card of cliché speeches, far too few take the time to fully appreciate not only the depth of his understanding of the multifaceted evils plaguing society but also his brilliant plans, methods and vision for creative problem solving.
With an end to the Qatar blockade and a possible rapprochement with Turkey, Saudi Arabia may soon move towards reconciliation with Syria. The Persian Gulf states’ opposition to Iran’s role in the region, while limiting Turkey’s influence, may bring Saudi Arabia and the Gulf back to Damascus.
Patriot Act 2.0 will be rolled out with a lot of mindless bleating about white supremacists and fighting fascism, and the actual policies and laws put into place will have virtually nothing to do with any of those things. They will be geared at preventing the revolutionary changes.
Though many will argue that such measures to silence Mr Trump were wielded in the public’s best interest, in the context of the violence we all saw unravel at Capital Hill this Wednesday, I’d like you to consider for a moment the implications of such a unilateral move.
In the following video, Senator Scott Jensen of Minnesota warns of a “danger that we need to talk about.” “The cancel culture is happening, … but the fact of the matter is COVID-19 has opened a door into a tremendously vicious political non-discussion.”
The UK government has launched its public consultation on the deregulation of gene editing in England. To kick things off, somewhat predictably Environment Secretary George Eustice recently spun a staunch pro-industry line at the Oxford Farming Conference.
If our media were trying to cover world events each day honestly, then the headlines would repeatedly say things like: “US and Britain commit more war crimes in the Middle East”, “Thousands persecuted by tyrants supported by US and Britain”. This does not happen because our current media are not trying to give us an honest explanation of what is really happening in the world.
In the wake of the Wednesday January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill Event, we must reflect on what a Joe Biden Administration will look like. Joe Biden was not duly elected, he was selected. He is a groomed and “reliable” politician. He is a political instrument of the global capitalist establishment.
Varoufakis describes here the way that leftwing dissidents who challenge or disrupt western establishment narratives – whether it be himself, Assange or Jeremy Corbyn – end up not only being subjected to character assassination, as was always the case, but nowadays find themselves being manipulated into colluding in their own character assassination.
Patriot Act 2.0 will be rolled out with a lot of mindless bleating about white supremacists and fighting fascism, and the actual policies and laws put into place will have virtually nothing to do with any of those things. They will be geared at preventing the revolutionary changes that need to be pushed for in the United States by the American people.
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Listening to US politicians and pundits the last few years you’d assume it’s been raining actual 9/11s and Pearl Harbors in America 24/7.
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“Our democracy has been attacked!” screamed the political establishment that just forced you to choose between Donald Trump and Democrat Donald Trump for president.
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Saying there’s been an attack on American democracy is like saying there’s been an attack on Kazakhstan’s fjords.
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Liberals learned the words “coup” and “insurrection” like five seconds ago and now they are academic experts on both of these things.
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The narrative managers’ ability to move liberals and progressives from “Defund the police” to “MOAR POLICING” in just a few months was even more impressive than their ability to move them from “Believe Women” and #MeToo to “Tara Reade is a lying grifter”.
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Here’s how politicians, media and government could eliminate conspiracy theories if they really want to:
To support the censorship of online speech is to support the authority of monopolistic tech oligarchs to exert more and more global control over human communication. Regardless of your attitude toward whoever happens to be getting deplatformed today, supporting this is self-destructive.
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I don’t share people’s magical fascination with the word “tolerance”. As far as I can tell it’s an empty and irrelevant concept. This isn’t about tolerance, it’s about trusting government-tied tech oligarchs to regulate speech around the world on monopolistic speech platforms.
The future of humanity depends on our ability to wake up a critical mass of people to how fucked things really are, and if speech which doesn’t conform to establishment orthodoxy is censored on the platforms the mainstream crowd use to share ideas, that will become impossible.
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“We need to stop fascism so let’s give massive sweeping powers to an elite alliance of unelected authoritarians.”
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“Well I’m a leftist and I haven’t been banned on social media.”
That’s because the left is politically impotent in our society. Unless this is just a hobby for you, at some point you should plan on the left becoming a threat to the oligarchs and warmongers. What do you think happens then?
Do you really think if the left actually becomes a threat to the status quo the Neera Tandens and Rachel Maddows aren’t going to suddenly discover a reason why you’re dangerous and need to be censored? The only way to be fine with censorship is to plan on never challenging power.
Tech billionaires are not on your side, and neither are the government agencies and plutocratic media leaning on them to implement censorship. Those institutions don’t give a shit about silencing the right, they want to implement measures to silence you. The left is being censored already, but it hasn’t seen anything yet.
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“As a leftist I’m fine with censorship because it’s not like the leftist revolution is going to be organized on social media.”
Social media isn’t for organizing the leftist revolution you bonehead, it’s for creating more leftists. It’s for reaching the mainstream.
A leftist’s first and foremost job is to create more leftists. If the left becomes a potent political force, all the censorship protocols they’ve been putting into place these last few years will be used to stop it from infecting the mainstream herd. You shouldn’t want this.
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Trying to stop fascism by making it invisible is like trying to avert a charging bull by putting your hands over your eyes.
If you want to stop the rise of fascism you need to change. Change your sick society. Profoundly. Not just cover up the manifestations of that sickness. Compartmentalizing and covering up the problem instead of pouring money and resources into creating a healthy society which addresses the underlying problems is the most shitlib thing ever.
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Saying you are free to leave these monopolistic platforms and go to some fringe website no one uses is the same as saying you are free to dig a hole and yell into it. There is no magical free market solution to this problem, because the problem is that imperial power structures are deliberately herding people onto monopolistic speech platforms that they can then censor under the guise of terms of service.
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All of the most critical factors determining what people’s lives are like are invisible now. Most people don’t even know they’re happening. Oligarchy. Neoliberalism. Imperialism. Used to be you knew who the king was, and he’d openly do anything he wanted. Now that’s all kept carefully hidden.
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Why is it kept hidden now? Well there are a lot of factors, but mostly it’s because the rank-and-file public discovered guillotines. Ever since then your rulers are out of necessity kept hidden from you, and so is their totalitarianism.
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The US government is the most evil and destructive force in the world. Not Trump. The US government. This will not change in any meaningful way when Trump leaves. Massive amounts of manipulation have been poured into keeping you from seeing this.
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The parallel of the American economic landscape from COVID’s deathly sweep seems far more like Ireland’s in the great potato famine of 1845-52 than the Great Depression of the 1930s. And the stinginess and indifference by the upper classes ruling both countries to the suffering of those considered far beneath them—who always take the brunt of most catastrophes—in both countries has not changed an iota.
In Ireland, a million died of starvation or from famine’s complications, bodies rotting where they fell. Nearly two million fled the country, most heading for the U.S. In America today, nearly 400,000 deaths from the pandemic are projected by year’s end Hundreds of unclaimed bodies are in refrigerator trucks (maximum storage: 50 each ) awaiting mass burials.
Most destitute Americans in the 1930s did indeed have a champion in president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) whose first priority the day after his inauguration on March 4, 1933 was their long and short-term recoveries. He issued 103 Executive Orders (EO) between March and June, mostly for New Deal programs covering unemployment, healthcare, housing, and food supplies.
Unfortunately, neither the 99 percenters of today nor those in Ireland then (and now) have had such a practical, tough, and caring leader who did yeoman’s work to put them back on their feet. The disasters made the populace totally dependent on upper-class decisions in Parliament then and Congress now about their fate. And the decisions in both cases were to employ the “herd immunity” policy of doing almost nothing—especially spending tax monies the stricken themselves provide over the years—to avoid deaths and long-term ailments of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, the “commons.”
Ireland in the 1840s did have representation in Parliament (105 in the House of Commons, 28 titled landowners in Lords). Congress today has 100 members in the Senate, 435 in House. Serving in both bodies has required either wealth or influential donors and time away from businesses and professions—and travel expenses.
So in today’s Congress, half its members are millionaires—as are those currently in the Irish Parliament. They move in elevated political and social circles. They also have enviable “perks” in transportation, dining, newsletter mailings, and the like.
With wealth, power, prestige, and perks, how could lawmakers possibly identify with victims of the famine or COVID or the urgency of relief measures? Besides, why would need for immediate help be considered if survivors could not (or would not) vote, and had yet to complain about their “taxation without representation?”
In both calamities, most affected have been either unaware of—or feel powerless about—legislative life-and-death decisions impacting them made in London or Washington, D.C. Judging from rulers’ inactions in both crises, most of those ruled have always believed they can do little to oppose leaders’ critical decisions supported by courts and armies—until millions form powerful movements and take appropriate actions. And today with the Internet—unlike radio and television requiring advertising money—it is the easiest way to connect millions of the commons than in any other time in history.
In practice, most people have been unaware of what is being designed in secret unless in modern times a trial balloon has been floated to test reactions. Both the Irish then and Americans up to recently usually have been presented with a fait accompli and must swallow it. But many refused. In Ireland it meant decades of guerrilla warfare against the British. Americans went for massive marches and placards on one hand and militant strike action on the other.
In this year’s five COVID relief bills, for example, no public hearings were held, nor were wanted by Congress. Members’ cynical presumption was that constituents could always use emails, calls, and town halls to provide their representatives—and advisors and legislative aides—with feedback. They knew the most affected had neither the time nor inclination to provide input.
Hearings indeed would have slowed down dispatching emergency aid even for the two successful bills, but it has taken nine months for them to be signed into law. The last—Coronavirus Response Additional Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 —passed because it was bundled with a vital $1.4 trillion bill to keep government operations running until September.
With typical upper-class disregard for the hardships of commoners impacted by economic disasters, Trump used a sadistic Sunday signing prank that cost more than 14 million a week of unemployment checks out of the 11 weeks before the March 14 permanent cutoff. But, then, three years ago he’d tossed paper towels as mop-up relief for Puerto Rico’s desperate survivors of Hurricane Maria. At least when an equally disdainful, yet frightened, Queen Victoria was finally persuaded to make a state visit to Ireland in 1849 when famine was ebbing, she donated £2,000 for relief.
Sadly, only a sprinkling of highly vocal populist legislative members—Prime Minister Robert Peel to an extent andSen. Bernie Sanders—have fought for legislative measures to provide genuine long-term solutions to adversities suffered by the lower classes. But most members in both eras have treated them with the same indifference and particular cruelty by control of the public purse.
In Ireland, famine relief of the mid-1840s and early 1850s entailed free soup kitchens, a few pence per day on public-work jobs, or the workhouse. In 1847, the head of Britain’s relief operations for Ireland was the penny-pinching Sir Randolph Routh . He regarded the Irish as lazy and full of “all kinds of vice,” and was delighted to report:
The soup [kitchen] system promises to be a great resource and I am endeavouring to turn the views of the Committees to it. It will have a double effect of feeding the people at a lower price and economising our meal.
While I am glad a government shutdown was avoided and that financial relief will finally reach many who truly need it, the fact that this dysfunction has become routine is the reason we are currently $27.5 trillion in debt. This combined spending bill will drive our debt to over $29 trillion by the end of this fiscal year….We do not have an unlimited checking account. We must spend federal dollars, money we are borrowing from future generations, more carefully and place limits on how much we are mortgaging our children’s future.
When it comes to tax breaks for rich people or corporate welfare or bloated military budgets, that’s OK. But when you stand up and you say that working-class families need some help, ‘Oh my God, the world is gonna collapse.’ So I am a little bit tired of that hypocrisy.
In both Parliament then and Congress now, a few members might have felt a twinge of guilt about that hypocrisy of their parsimonious actions—but not many. Most have been extremely grateful not to be among the millions facing a bitterly cold winter of discontent and despair over joblessness, homelessness, starvation—and death by famine or COVID.
Trying to provide relief and recovery to the victims of sudden Acts of Nature or financial crashes in both countries is perhaps the greatest illustration of class warfare. Most decision makers in Parliament and Congress have always had low regard for bankrupts and beggars as the “undeserving poor,” “layabouts,” or “welfare queens” bent on stealing taxpayer money (before they do).
Parliament passed only two relief laws for the Irish during the famine, both in 1847—the Destitute Poor Act and the Poor Law Extension Act . Total expense was £8 million of which £7 million came from Irish taxes and £1 from Ireland’s landlords.
The first set up those soup kitchens which were to feed three million . The second law limited borrowers to local lenders. Unlike today’s COVID relief laws, neither major businesses, institutions nor financial houses were included in those laws.
Not so for Congress in the two of five COVID relief bills it finally passed this year.
In the first place, the bipartisan, Scrooge-like leaders never would have produced, much less passed, a stand-alone rescue bill solely for COVID’s jobless to pay their rent, utilities, food, and doctor bills. This was just shown by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blocking passage of a stand-alone House-passed bill for a one-time $2,000 stimulus check for most households. It was to replace the $600 allotted in the $900 billion Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 which Trump signed into law December 22.
Nor were they about to produce a stand-alone bill devoted solely to bailing out businesses and institutions. The 2011 Occupy movement notoriously identified the class system as the 1 percent rich against the 99 percent of most Americans. Our street demonstrators’ famous chant was “Banks Got Bailed Out/We Got Sold Out.” Greed suddenly got a bad name and might cost incumbents in the upcoming elections.
The solution was to combine both people and business-rescue operations and tout relief measures and hide greed. In the first relief bill, the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security), more than half of the initial funds were bailouts to corporations and tax-extension breaks for the wealthy and other sources dimly related to relief for people.
One infamous provision—the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—initially was allocated $349 billion in the CARES Act; today, it’s $285 billion. It involved forgivable million-dollar loans supposedly to smallbusinesses by the SBA (Small Business Administration) to cover employee wages until reopenings. But major corporations and institutions—some unaffected by COVID—were first in line siphoned off a lion’s share of the loan funds until complaints by enough small businesses were addressed. Too, because SBA loans are made through approved lenders such JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, etc. they charged that agency with 1-5 percent “processing fees” (PC), depending on the loan’s size. And have made billions. For instance, a 5 percent PC on an average loan of, say, $104,760 borrowed by 280,185 small businesses, the profit would be $1.5 billion.
As the nine months passed, COVID’s hardest-hit, the working-class, got less and less while COVID continued to decimate the population.
The first bill, the nearly $4 trillion CARES Act whipped through Congress to Trump’s signature in seven days by March 27. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin withheld nearly $500 billion from the people’s portion to invest it into businesses.
Provisions included a one-time, Trump-autographed $1,200 check to 159 millionfamilies to “stimulate” spending, and a weekly $600 supplement to unemployment checks ending the day after Christmas. “Forbearance” was offered for student-loan payments and moratoriums for rent and mortgage payments—but only until December 31.
So legislative aides slogged back to the drawing board once more after a group of bipartisan House members asked for a $908 billion relief bill to avoid a howling outcry by recipients when all benefits ended. The final draft was whittled down to $900 billion.
Its 5,593 pages included a one-time stimulus check of $600 for each family member to those earning lessthan $75,000 a year, an extension for unemployment checks until March 14 with the $600 supplement cut to $300 per week, and another extension for paid sick and family leave until March 31. Homeowners with federal mortgages requesting forbearance would have a 90-day extension on foreclosures. Renters in federally subsidized housing were given a 120-day moratorium without penalties. Eviction moratoriums would last only until January 31. As for student loans, none were offered because lawmakers decided nine months of forbearance until January 31 was sufficient.
Even with these cutbacks and brief extensions, key Republicans like South Dakota’sSen. John Thune (net worth: $384,509.50) opposed including that stimulus check to the unemployed. Combined with their weekly unemployment check, that would be double-dipping, he believed.
Meantime in today’s Ireland, equally hard hit by COVID and meager relief measures, the February elections resulted in a three-party coalition government—two for the upper classes and the fast-growing working-class party, Sinn Fein. The country’s FY2021 budget of $133.8 billion may have had a line-item of $1.5 billion for the military, but, as in the U.S., its COVID relief got so few additional crumbs from 2020, that Sinn Fein’s finance spokesperson snapped that for ordinary workers and families the allocation was: “crumbs off the table—there’s nothing for renters, people on social welfare or pensioners and nothing in terms of childcare.” By May, Ireland had at least a million jobless receiving a weekly $390 unemployment check. In the U.S., it was 20.3 million Americans by November whose benefits averaged $319 weekly .
As financial columnist Nick Beams summed up the reality of the class system’s centuries-old appallingly cruel treatment of the commons in this Armageddon:
When governments and central banks launched their multi-trillion-dollar bailout operations, they claimed the extraordinary measures were necessary to save the economy. This fraud has been exposed. The sole concern of the ruling oligarchy was not the health and economic well-being of the mass of the population, but that of the financial markets.
Both our countries have similar histories and scrappy lower classes. We both fought Britain for Independence and experienced heavy immigration, millions to America mostly from Europe, 500,000 fleeing the Great Famine to the same destination. We’ve had civil wars—racial in the U.S., religious in Ireland—and were leveled economically by the Great Depression. And now we 99 percenters share COVID’s ongoing horrors, one of which is that millions commoners will be the last class even in the “rich countries” to receive the vaccine. After all, its producers can make only so many in a day.
But it’s a certainty that after the healthcare professionals are inoculated, the rich will be next in the distribution line.
New administrations in both countries are facing monumental financial challenges to their COVID-affected populations. And their major challenge seems to be how to find the revenues to cover those domestic expenditures without heavy taxation on the wealthy or corporations or forcing austerity on those who can least afford it. From a historical perspective, the wealthy majority in the Irish Parliament and Congress are not about to tax the rich to give relief to the poor until they have first wrung the last penny from the commons.
Columnist Shane O’Brien with the Irishcentral website speculated that raising revenue in Ireland might be done by taxing private pension savings. Or a progressive tax for bank accounts over £10,000. Or increasing property taxes and “asset tax structures” on the wealthy. But given the difficulty of even collecting taxes on the wealthy and corporations, both the Irish Parliament and Congress may begin to talk about “bail-ins” wherein the government seizes portions of bank accounts to avoid going bankrupt—with crisp documents vowing to return every penny—some day. Perhaps that’s what it will take to arouse the ruled in both countries against the rulers. As poet Edwin Markham warned in 1899, America’s “gilded age”:
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
…. After the silence of the centuries?
The January 6 invasion and desecration of our nation’s Capitol is but a sample of what’s ahead in every state capitol if nothing changes for ordinary Americans by Congress.
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Barbara G. Ellis, Ph.D., is the principal of a Portland (OR) writing firm. A veteran professional writer and editor (LIFE magazine, Washington, D.C. Evening Star, Beirut Daily Star, Mideast Magazine), she also was a journalism professor (Oregon State University/Louisiana’s McNeese State University). Author of dozens of articles for magazines and online websites, she was a nominee for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history (The Moving Appeal). Today, she contributes to Truthout and Counterpunch, RSN, DissidentVoice, Global Research, and OpEdNews, as well as being a political and environmental activist.
Featured image: Rioters in Dungarvan attempt to break into a bakery; the poor could not afford to buy what food was available. (The Pictorial Times, 1846). (CC0)
How strange it must have seemed for US lawmakers to be suddenly facing what was described as a “mob”, not so much storming as striding into the Capitol with angry purpose. A terrified security force proved understaffed and overwhelmed. Members of Congress hid. Five people lost their lives.
With the US imperium responsible for fostering numerous revolutions and coups across the globe during its history, spikes of schadenfreude could be found. China’s state paper Global Times found it irresistible to use the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong as a point of comparison. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s remark that the Hong Kong protests were “a beautiful sight to behold” was rubbed in the face of US lawmakers. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying, remarking on the gloating reaction of Chinese netizens, also referred to remarks by US lawmakers on the Hong Kong protests.
It did not take long for carelessly chosen words such as “coup” to find their way into the political stuttering, as if President Donald Trump had somehow been having beer hall meetings in an atmosphere thick with plotting. Presidential historian Michael Beschloss was one. “This is a coup d’état attempted by the president of the United States.”
Many members of Congress concurred.
“What happened at the US Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president,” concluded Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer in a statement. “This president should not hold office one day longer.”
Republican Senator Mitt Romney also stated that “an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States,” had taken place. Republican Rep. John Curtis went further, calling the move on the Capitol “an act of domestic terrorism inspired and encouraged by our president.”
Meaty words for scenes more nastily absurd than politically planned or devised, despite assertions by Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming that “the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob.”
This summation is all too tidy. It would have been far better to see the rioters much as the commander-and-chief himself: disposed to chaos, unrepentant in petulance. There was the QAnon conspiracy theorist Jake Angeli, sans shirt but donning a fur hat with Viking horns and spear, treating the occasion like a Christmas panto. There was Richard “Bigo” Barnett, who occupied, for a moment, the chair of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leaving a note reading: “Nancy, Bigo was here, you bitch.”
There is no denying that such protestors had been offered rich encouragement by the president to protest the certification of the election results by Congress. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” he said coaxingly. Preoccupied with his own version of the stab-in-the-back theory involving a “stolen” election, Trump is crafting a version of history that, should it stick, will propel him for a future campaign to retake the White House.
The Capitol incident had tickled and teased out the prospects of a real coup, currently being hatched by a rerun of the impeachment narrative and suggestions that the 25th Amendment of the US constitution be invoked. Section 4 of the amendment establishes a process by which the president can be declared “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” provided the vice president and a majority of “the principal officers of the executive departments” think so. The prospect of a hazardous use of that amendment is in the offing.
The wording of the amendment is broad and undefined, even though the original intent of it remains one of removing an executive who suffers true incapacity. The idea of medical emergency lies at its core. Even then, a letter has to be signed to the speakers of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The president is also given a chance to offer a written response contesting the finding, leaving it to Congress to decide. A supermajority of two-thirds in both congressional chambers would then be required.
Press outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post, and organisations such as the National Association of Manufacturers have not bothered themselves too much about the original nature of the provision and its purpose. President and CEO of the latter, Jay Timmons, took the broadest interpretation for the sake of urgency. “Vice President Pence, who was evacuated from the Capitol, should seriously consider working with the Cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment to preserve democracy.”
Various lawmakers have also adopted an expansive, if cursory interpretation. In the view of Vermont’s Republican Governor Phil Scott, “President Trump should resign or be removed from office by his Cabinet, or by the Congress.”
Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, in their note to Pence, urge him along with a majority of Cabinet secretaries, to find Trump unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. They even go for a layman’s diagnosis of his mental wellbeing. “Even his video announcement this afternoon, President Trump revealed that he was not mentally sound and is still unable to process and accept the results of the 2020 election.”
When the Democrats refused to believe the results of the 2016 elections, showing a persistent inability to process and accept it, they could never be said to be mentally unwell. Unhinged and delusional, maybe, but hardly a case of mental corrosion.
Law academic Brian Kalt, a keen student of the 25th amendment, advances two scenarios where section 4 might be used. The first involves “a president whose impairment is severe enough that the helm is, effectively, unmanned, even if he is still somehow able to claim that he is able to discharge his powers and duties.” Examples might entail severe strokes, a psychotic break or moderate dementia.
The second instance, which still suggests psychotic behaviour, would involve impairment “to the point of teeing up a disaster,” much like General Jack D. Ripper’s flight of murderous fancy in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove. “Consider, for example, an unhinged president who orders a capricious nuclear strike against another county – the problem here is not that the president is ‘unable’ so much as all too able to wipe out millions of lives.”
While Kalt was writing this in 2019, his views convinced Jack Goldsmith of Harvard Law School and David Priess, chief operating officer at Lawfare, that Trump had met the standard of removal set by the 25th Amendment. He had shown an “inability or unwillingness for weeks to distinguish reality from fiction about the results of the election” and had shown a “detachment from exercising the basic responsibilities of the office”.
Andrew C. McCarthy in the National Review prefers, with much justification, that this is simply pushing things too far, confusing delusion and character flaws with incapacity and inability. He has pointed out, with some accuracy, that the amendment was “not applicable to a situation in which the president is alleged to be unfit for reasons of character, or due to the commission of political offences that may arise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanours.” Trump might be delusional and self-interested, but these were not “competent diagnoses of mental instability.”
Within the various disturbed readings of the 25th Amendment lie the same rages that caused Caliban to despair at seeing his own face. Trump is the symptom, the agent of chaos, the disrupter making much of a bedridden Republic, a good deal of it the making of his opponents. To use the language of constitutionalism masquerading as an insurrection is intended to finally entomb Trumpism. What this risks doing is politically martyring a man who will leave office on January 20.
So far, Pence is resolutely opposed to using the measure and has the support of various Trump cabinet officials. According to the New York Times, “Those officials, a senior Republican said, viewed the effort as likely to add to the current chaos in Washington rather than deter it.” Utilising it would add the most combustible fuel to the argument Trump has been making all along: that establishment forces, always keen to box him during his administration, are now intent on removing him.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
The coverage of groups of people, described as mobs, rioters, or protestors depending on one’s prejudice or adherence to accurate reporting, who “stormed” the Capitol in Washington and the Legislative Council in Hong Kong is revealing for how media and politicians react.
The American media ran headlines such as:
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“Trump supporters storm Capitol,” Washington Post
“Inside the mob that swarmed the US Capitol,” CNN
“A pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in Washington,” LA Times
“In Photos: Mob Storms U.S. Capitol Building” New York Times
“Pro-Trump mob sends US Capitol into chaos,” Chicago Tribune
State/corporate media headlines were similar in Canada and the UK.
The “mob” was encouraged by the words of president Donald Trump. Included in the mob were extreme right-wingers and white-supremacist groups. Of note were the participation of the Falun Gong and Trump-supporting Tibetan sovereignists. The raising of the Tibetan flag at the Capitol Hill imbroglio caused “outrage and alarm” among some in the Tibetan online community. Imagine what would be the reaction if sovereignist Hawai’i flags were raised in Beijing.
CCTV surveillance, for which China is often criticized in the West, has led to some Capitol hill rioters being identified and losing their jobs.
Wei Ling Chua, author of Democracy: What the West Can Learn from China, commented that “unlike US government trained Hong Kong terrorists, Trump supporters did not use arrows, fire bombs, throw stones, or attack the public who expressed different opinions.”
Political leaders were quick to condemn the violence that erupted on Capitol Hill Wednesday after protestors stormed buildings and at least one woman was injured in a shooting.
UK PM Boris Johnson said, “Disgraceful scenes in U.S. Congress. The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.”
Earlier when speaking of the Hong Kong protestors, Johnson said, “So yes I do support them and I will happily speak up for them and back them every inch of the way.”
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau told the News 1130 Vancouver radio station, “Obviously we’re concerned and we’re following the situation minute by minute. I think the American democratic institutions are strong, and hopefully everything will return to normal shortly.”
Speaking of the protests in Hong Kong, Trudeau directed his criticism at Beijing, “We have worked with some of our closest allies including the U.K., Australia and others to condemn the actions taken by China in Hong Kong.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the people who stormed the US legislature were “attackers and rioters” and that she felt “angry and also sad” after seeing pictures from the scene.
When it came to the Hong Kong protestors, Merkel focused on the rights of the protestors; she “pointed out that these rights and freedoms must of course be guaranteed.”
David Sassoli, president of European Parliament, tweeted, “Deeply concerning scenes from the US Capitol tonight. Democratic votes must be respected. We are certain the US will ensure that the rules of democracy are protected.”
Concerning the unruly situation in Hong Kong — where rioters disrupted the passengers and flights at the international airport, ruined the LegCo, vandalized the metro, trashed university campuses, etc. — the European Parliament put forth a resolution that reads in part: “whereas the people of Hong Kong have taken to the streets in unprecedented numbers, peacefully exercising their fundamental right to assemble and to protest; whereas on 12 June, tens of thousands of protesters assembled around the Legislative Council building and its nearby roads, calling on the government to drop its proposed amendments to Hong Kong’s extradition law…”
What triggered the protests in Hong Kong? Some citizens were opposed to extradition of alleged criminals? How has China responded to rioting, sabotage, terrorism, separatism, and even murders by the so-called protestors? Hong Kong is a territory that was under British colonial administration from 1841 to 1997. There was no democracy until 18 directly elected seats were introduced to LegCo in 1991, shortly before the handover to China. When Hong Kong reverted to mainland China as a special autonomous region; it must be noted that once the original demands for rescinding the extradition bill were met, the goal posts of the NED-supported protestors transformed into a purported democracy movement.
“Hong Kong democracy fighters face a dire choice: Go abroad or go to jail,” Washington Post
“Hong Kong police fire tear gas on pro-democracy protesters,” CNN
“China is desperate to stop Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement,” LA Times
“Hong Kong Police Arrest Dozens of Pro-Democracy Leaders …” New York Times
“Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protest movement left reeling by China’s recent power grab,” Chicago Tribune
Did China respond with military force? No. With arrests of law-abiding journalists? No. With police brutality? Many observers will acknowledge that police have been incredibly restrained, some would say too restrained in the face of protestor violence.
The protestors, largely disaffected youth, as is apparent in all or most video footage, by and large employ random violence as a tactic, which some of them do not condemn.
I agree that individuals and the citizenry should have the right to protest against acts/measures/situations that are perceived to be unjust. However, when the goal of the protests has been achieved, for subsequent demands to be added by the protestors creates an appearance of disingenuousness.
Furthermore, whether one section of a citizenry have the right to inconvenience, disrupt, create conditions of insecurity, economic hardship for another section of the citizenry calls into question the legitimacy of protests. This is especially called into question when authorities have acceded to the initial demand(s) of the protestors.
A 2017 poll found that 78.4% of Hong Kongers responded affirmatively to the statement “Belief that activities demanding political reforms in Hong Kong should be peaceful and non-violent.”
Chinese media have tried to expose the western mass media disinformation about the Hong Kong protests. The Global Times, an English-language Chinese newspaper, notes, with a hint of Schadenfreude, the hypocrisy in the pronouncements of western politicians and mass media comparing rioters at the Capitol Hill and in Hong Kong.
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Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Twitter: @kimpetersen.
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ― George Washington
As of January 6, 2021 Twitter decided to suspend US President Donald Trump’s account, for all intents and purposes putting a sock into the man’s mouth for IT didn’t feel like entertaining his political rants. And though many will argue that such measures to silence Mr Trump were wielded in the public’s best interest, in the context of the violence we all saw unravel at Capital Hill this Wednesday, I’d like you to consider for a moment the implications of such a unilateral move.
And for those who missed it, Jo Biden’s presidency was certified by Congress late last night.
Twitter, however familiar the platform has become, remains forever a private entity, a corporate body that cannot claim to legislate or in this particular instance rule over our realities by shutting out certain voices and/or certain ideas. Such powers are far too great for any one individual or corporation to exercise without oversight and lawful recourses. One does not simply suspend a democratically elected president’s opinions on the basis that they clash with the CEO’s own personal views and interests.
Let us not pretend that Twitter was incensed by Wednesday violence … let’s not be so blind and egregiously naive as to believe that Twitter fancies itself the guardian of all things virtuous and fair: like freedom, democracy and civil liberties. Maybe more to the point let us remember that it is not Twitter’s job to moderate our views and shape our thoughts process. If free we are, and indeed free we want to stay, then we ought to defend our rights to free speech – however vile such speech may at times be.
To silence is to dictate and to any form of diktat sits contarian to democratic principles.
I will quote here another US President, President Harry S. Truman, who, in a speech before Congress, warned:
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
He was of course referring to calls by state agencies to ‘monitor’ and ‘contain’ certain dissident voices to preserve the integrity of the State, but the essence of his speech applies here perfectly still – only now it seems the power to silence, monitor, and repress lies now in the hands of corporations as opposed to state agencies. I find the idea slightly more unnerving …
Whatever anyone may think of Trump: hate him, loathe him, mock him, adore him, support him, idolise him, he ought not to be shut out so that others’ voices could rise above to better dominate the landscape. This is not how healthy democracies function, this is now how you defend a nation’s democratic future, and it is certainly not an example you want to set out to the world and still argue that America is the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
Back in 2018, University of Detroit Mercy law professor Kyle Langvardt wrote a pertinent commentary in the Georgetown Law Journal on the matter. She said, “It seems obvious to me that this is an unacceptable way for a liberal society to do business … What concerns me is that we entrust a few unaccountable and self-interested tech companies to govern online discourse.”
Twitter most definitely overstepped its bounds, thus setting a precedent few have even bothered to challenge for they are only too glad the target was Trump. I often marvel at people’s ability to rationalise their lack of intellectual consistency … call it cognitive dissonance if you will. To hold to the principles of free speech is to agree to bear the poison of opposite views and opinions.
There is another important point I’d like to make, one which too few have even bothered looking into so busy they were to blame Mr Trump for the chaos we all witnessed on our screens. To accuse is one thing, to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt is another. Those ‘agents provocateurs’ we saw commit acts of vandalism and violence may not have been Trump’s MAGA army … until we know for sure, we should not assume; especially since it so conveniently fits the very narrative which rationalises censorship.
But then again the whole point of this blame exercise was exactly that: to muddle half facts with fast-made conclusions to better manipulate public thinking and thus justify one’s decision to self-righteously silence the proverbial “Opposition”- in this case Trump and his supporters, so that the field would be cleared.
I will leave you here to ponder over the words of John Stuart Mill – undoubtedly one of the greatest thinkers of our Western philosophical canon.
The basic thrust of his argument on Free Speech is set out in a remarkably succinct form in the following passage of his essay, On Liberty:
“…the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.”
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Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
The Great Reset had to happen so the cashless society could be brought in and the one world government could be introduced…
With society now in a Police state and a Mandatory Vaccine now in place, Kain is finding refuge in the empty streets of London in search of a way out…
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VIDEO
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Martin Luther King Jr. day has been celebrated every January 18 since it was a made a national holiday through the tireless efforts of Martin’s widow Coretta in 1983.
While many people take the opportunity to treat Martin’s life as a pre-packaged hallmark card of cliché speeches, far too few take the time to fully appreciate not only the depth of his understanding of the multifaceted evils plaguing society but also his brilliant plans, methods and vision for creative problem solving which touched on far more than the single issue of “civil rights” for which he is celebrated. In fact, on deeper inspection, we should not be surprised to discover that Martin had come to bridge the gulf between racial justice, economic justice, imperial wars abroad and also global economic imperialism and worked hard to create a functional battle plan to solve all of those problems.
It should not be surprising that this great leader was killed (followed soon thereafter by his ally Robert Kennedy), and the world took a very dark and un-natural trajectory. It should also not be surprising that many years after his death, efforts were put into motion by those unsatisfied with the death of his body- who wished nothing less than the assassination of his memory and legacy.
The 2nd Assassination of MLK
A new assassination is being attempted half a century after the life of Martin Luther King was cut short by a bullet on the balcony of the Loraine Motel on April 4, 1968. A story has gone viral across the international media in recent months which promises to shed light on the dark perversity of Martin Luther King Jr.
The scandal was featured in the June 2019 edition of Standpoint magazine by internationally renowned Martin Luther King “authority” David Garrow and aimed at destroying the myth of King as a moral leader of America by showcasing the ugliness of King’s true self as a an orgy-loving abuser who had over 40 affairs and laughed as a friend raped a parishioner. Garrow states that his expose “poses so fundamental a challenge to his historical stature as to require the most complete and extensive historical review possible.”
The fact that so many news outlets are jumping on the bandwagon should cause one to wonder why is this happening at this moment in history? Could this strange hysteria over a mediocre slander piece have anything to do with the fact that the polarized cages of left and right are finally breaking down? Could it be that the light shed upon the injustices and reality of the Deep State’s infiltration of the US government over decades may awaken something within the collective psyche of Americans which many had thought was long dead?
The timing is especially strange since the supposed “ground breaking evidence” which the heroic Garrow is bringing to light was actually first made public in November 2017, and on closer inspection, it wouldn’t qualify by any lawyer’s standard as “evidence”.
The “Scandal” Being Exposed
In November 2017, a batch of 19,000 formerly classified government documents, and wiretap transcripts relating to the assassination of John F. Kennedy were made public as per the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992. Although nothing very dramatic was found among that otherwise highly redacted bundle, a strange 20 page FBI report on Martin Luther King Jr did cause some to take notice. In this report published weeks before his murder, an anonymous FBI agent records his assessment that MLK was a paid and loyal member of the Communist Party who had his speeches approved by Communist controllers. Not only that, but the report paints King as a sexual deviant of the highest order.
In the last two pages, the report explains how King engaged in a “two day drunken sex orgy in Washington D.C., Many of those present engaged in sexual acts, natural as well as un-natural, for the entertainment of onlookers. When one of the females shied away from engaging in an unnatural act, King and other males present discussed how she was to be taught and initiated in this respect”.
The conspicuous quality of this FBI report, is that it is so reminiscent of Christopher Steele’s 30 page “dodgy dossier” which justified FBI surveillance on President Trump in the lead up to the 2016 elections. Without ever taking a moment to prove any of its claims, the Steele dossier asserted dozens of instances of Trump’s sexual perversity and his adherence to the nefarious agenda of the Kremlin.
Similarly ignoring all actual evidence, the 1968 FBI report advances an image of King as a degenerate using only hearsay, conjecture, and third hand reports. For example, the FBI, not known for their honesty, are convinced that King fathered a child with a mistress in Los Angeles purely because they were informed by “a very responsible Los Angeles individual in a position to know”. The audio tapes, if they exist at all, have never actually been heard by anyone and we are told will supposedly be made public in 2027.
Garrow’s Sleight of Hand
Before going further, it is worth taking a moment to ask who is this David Garrow who has found the courage to reveal the “true Martin Luther King”?
Garrow is celebrated by the Mainstream Press as an international authority on Martin Luther King due largely to his Pulitzer Prize winning 1986 book “Bearing the Cross” which has somehow given him the authority to be the last word on the narrative of King’s life for the next 33 years. Since that book Garrow has worked as a professor of history at various universities has found himself writing for proven CIA-sponsored mainstream rags such as the Washington Post, NY Times, Financial Times, New Republic and has more recently been stationed in England as a senior research Fellow at Cambridge University from 2005-2011. Today Garrow has become the official biographer of Barack Obama, and also an authority on the fraud of Russia-Gate attracting hordes of Trump supporters to his analysis.
Garrow has also made himself an enemy of the King family by leading slander campaigns against Coretta Scott King and her children who have managed the King Family Estate by labelling them as corrupt conspiracy theorists due to the family’s crazy belief that the government had anything to do with King’s assassination.
The Forgotten 1999 Civil Court Case
Garrow was first deployed to attack the family in the wake of the Memphis Civil Court trial in December 1999 wherein a four week long hearing of 70 witnesses ended with a Jury unanimously concluding not only that James Earl Ray (who had died in prison the year earlier) was innocent of the murder of Dr. King, but that the FBI and highest echelons of government conspired in the assassination.
During a press conference Coretta Scott King said:
“There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation.”
Coretta’s son Dexter (who is now the president of the King Center) spoke after his mother saying:
“We can say that because of the evidence and information obtained in Memphis we believe that this case is over. This is a period in the chapter. We constantly hear reports, which trouble me, that this verdict creates more questions than answers. That is totally false. Anyone who sat in on almost four weeks of testimony, with over seventy witnesses, credible witnesses I might add, from several judges to other very credible witnesses, would know that the truth is here.”
While a fuller expose documenting the FBI/Anglo-Canadian intelligence behind the King assassination will be documented elsewhere, it is sufficient to note for now that during this period of constant O.J. Simpson trial coverage across all press agencies, hardly a word on these hearings was covered by the media.
David Garrow stepped into the mud early on to slander the family and the court case as a whole saying of the family
“The King youngsters are part of a larger population of American people who need to believe that the assassination of a King or a Kennedy must be the work of mightier forces… Individuals need to see something of a harmony amongst impact and cause. That if something has a large evil effect, it ought to be the result of a huge evil cause”.
By denying the existence of causality, or conspiracy in regards to historical processes, this “world renowned historian” essentially admitted that he is either extremely dumb or a part of the conspiracy himself.
Exhibiting the height of hypocrisy, Garrow said of King’s children in 2009
“I fear we are at the point where the behaviour of the children is doing lasting, indelible damage to King’s reputation”.
Philip Madison Jones, a Hollywood producer and best friend of Dexter King has stated that Garrow’s anti-King family malice is due to the fact that King’s late wife Coretta Scott King refused to put Garrow in charge of a project involving King’s papers. Apparently, Garrow wished to do to King what Edgar Poe’s “official” biography Rufus Griswold did in 1850[1].
Obama as a Superior Role Model
It was while working in Cambridge in 2008 that Garrow became obsessed with Barack Obama and with the idea of writing an untouchable biography that would render all other biographies obsolete for all time. This work was so magnificent and all-encompassing that it would require 9 years to write and would finally put an end to all speculation about Obama’s birth and shady life before politics. The effect of this work was a 1500 page fluff piece called “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama”.
Describing his motive for writing his book Garrow said:
“My very purposeful intent with this book has been to produce a book of record that folks will still be using and relying upon 25, 35 years from now. All throughout 2008, I was disappointed by the quality and depth of journalism about his earlier life. I thought the mainstream media was being insufficiently curious about him and on the other hand, we simultaneously had all of these whacky oppositional actions out there regarding where was he born was he really a Muslim? And so I came to this really with a professional belief that someone with my background and experience should really tackle this.”
When asked in an interview how he managed to have so many long meetings with Obama in the White House (who apparently took the time out of his busy schedule to read the entire opus), Garrow stated that it was arranged by his personal friend Bob Bauer who just so happened to be Obama’s personal attorney. Amongst other crimes, Bauer had been known for providing the “legal justification” for Obama’s unconstitutional bombing of Libya in 2011. Both Bauer and Garrow are currently playing two sides of the anti-Trump operation with Bauer acting as a loud voice for impeachment and advocate of the Russia-Gate narrative and Garrow playing an anti-Russia-Gate liberal socialist who now appears on Fox News regularly as he is a rare case of a liberal intellectual attacking Russia-Gate. While promoting the neo-liberal order embodied by Barack Obama on the one hand, Garrow has somehow managed to walk the fine line of convincing both left and right ideologues that he is trustworthy because his lofty intellect transcends partisanship.
Garrow has gained the respect of weak minded liberals and conservatives alike by criticising the abuses of the FBI while actually hiding the larger historical truths which Garrow’s masters wish to bury. In the case of the King story, Garrow appears critical of the FBI’s surveillance of King but then explains at length why their reasoning was completely logical and evidence based. In a lengthy article, Garrow attempts to make the case that King’s close advisor Stanley Levison was a former financier for the Communist Party of America (CPUSA). How did the FBI know that? They merely asked two former CPUSA members/FBI informant siblings Jack and Morris Childs who said so. Garrow wrote of this irrefutable evidence in a 2002 article in the Atlantic: “The Childs brothers’ direct, personal contact with Levison from the mid-1940s to 1956 was sufficient to leave no doubt whatsovever that their reports about his role was accurate and truthful”. Levison’s connection to King provided Hoover with the “legal grounds” to begin wiretapping King in 1955.
While the evidence used by Hoover to justify wiretaps were nearly always untrue, what has come to light in recent years is that much of the CPUSA as well as the black nationalist movements were under total control of the FBI with vast numbers of the membership of both organizations on the roster as paid informants. After King’s assassination, the Childs brothers, still under FBI direction, rose to the highest echelons of the communist party and were selected to arrange for money transfers from the Kremlin to the CPUSA.
In 1956, Hoover created COINTELPRO with the explicit purpose of infiltrating and subverting civil rights movements; utilizing informants, false narratives and low intensity psychological warfare. Hoover himself said of the operation “The purpose of this new counterintelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership and supporters.” Fearing the rise of moral leadership as a destruction of the “rules of the game” which the FBI wished to control from above Hoover said that they must “prevent the rise of a ‘messiah’ who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement”.
Bobby and John Fight Back
While Garrow writes extensively that Bobby Kennedy acting as Attorney General was to blame for King’s illegal surveillance, the reality is quite the reverse. Both Kennedy brothers detested the FBI’s dictatorship in America and both understood the international power structures of British Intelligence shaping the CIA/FBI behaviour from above. When JFK fired Allan Dulles, he made many manoeuvers to bring the FBI under control to little avail. The night that John was killed, Bobby Kennedy was with his close friend Congressman Cornelius Gallagher who later reported that Bobby stated that “the old man (Hoover)” was behind it. Gallagher went on record in a 2013 interview saying “if there was a conspiracy then only Hoover and his special group could have killed the President”. In that same interview Gallagher discussed his belief in the Permindex assassination bureau which Attorney General Jim Garrison had uncovered during his investigation of JFK’s assassination[2].
While Bobby is painted as an anti-MLK enforcer for the FBI by Garrow, the reality is that Bobby personally intervened to get King out of a six month sentence in a maximum security penitentiary, for having an invalid driver’s license, in 1960. As he was deciding to run for President in 1968, MLK was simultaneously contemplating running as a candidate which would have brought these two collaborators into a potentially powerful political alliance. Ironically, FBI Director James Comey (who was later fired for attempting his “Hoover moment” with incoming President Trump), slandered Bobby in a London Guardian 2015 interview saying“I keep Bobby’s authorization of King’s FBI surveillance on my desk to remind me of the agency’s past misdeeds”.
Unfortunately, the beautiful possibility of a 1968 Bobby Kennedy/Martin Luther King alliance was not permitted to come into being and an era of insanity was unleashed. While such operations as MK Ultra and COINTELPRO came to formal ends in the 1970s, their operations continued on as the Deep State embedded itself ever more deeply into the heart of America’s soul.
Where do We go from Here?
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the FBI became recognized as just one branch of the Deep State/5 Eyes international intelligence apparatus which had been making every effort to undermine America and bring the republic back under firm control of the British Empire as outlined by Cecil Rhodes in his 1877 will.
Just as the FBI often controlled the most reactionary and violent elements of anti-establishment movements during COINTELPRO, recent reports have proven that the vast majority of those “prevented” terrorist attempts which have occurred in America since 1993 have actually first been instigated by the FBI demonstrating conclusively that the bureau never reformed.
We stand at a moment which is shaped by a great hope for a new set of relationships based on the potential alliance between western cultures increasingly purged of the Deep State and Eastern nations led by Russia, China and the Belt and Road Initiative, let us remember the words of Martin Luther King Jr in his August 1967 speech titled “Where do We go from Here?”
“I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about “where do we go from here?” that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society…
Now, don’t think you have me in a bind today. I’m not talking about communism. What I’m talking about is far beyond communism. …Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated…
And I must confess, my friends, that the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. And there will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again, with tear-drenched eyes, have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. But difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future….
When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
In his closing remarks to the 1999 jury trial that found King to be a victim of a vast conspiracy, Martin’s son Dexter King left a challenge to all who would come into contact with this news:
The question now is, “What will you do with that?” We as a family have done our part. We have carried this mantle for as long as we can carry it. We know what happened. It is on public record. The transcripts will be available; we will make them available on the Web at some point. Any serious researcher who wants to know what happened can find out.”
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[1] The idea that Poe was a deviant, alcoholic and opium addict was entirely generated by the pen of Poe’s enemy Rufus Griswold who managed to purchase the entire body of Poe’s personal writings from the poet’s financially strained aunt and then proceeded to “lose everything” while publishing a biography that became the authoritative book on Poe for the next 170 years.
[2] Much of Garrison’s work was used in the crafting of Oliver Stone’s JFK whose buzz on Capitol Hill created the momentum for the passage of the JFK Records Declassification Act of 1992.
Original Video by @marcusdipaola Police Officer opening barrier for protestors. Over the last few days there were efforts to tag this clip as inconclusive. However, slow-down and zoom-in show clearly that policeman DID open the barrier without being attacked. pic.twitter.com/xhhFJu7QVP
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In the following video, Senator Scott Jensen of Minnesota warns of a “danger that we need to talk about.”
“The cancel culture is happening, … but the fact of the matter is COVID-19 has opened a door into a tremendously vicious political non-discussion.”
Watch his full statement below.
VIDEO
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With an end to the Qatar blockade and a possible rapprochement with Turkey, Saudi Arabia may soon move towards reconciliation with Syria.
The Persian Gulf states’ opposition to Iran’s role in the region, while limiting Turkey’s influence, may bring Saudi Arabia and the Gulf back to Damascus.
The Gulf monarchies did not support the Muslim Brotherhood ideology of the terrorists in Syria, such as the Free Syrian Army and other Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists. However, the oil-rich Gulf states did the bidding of their main western ally, the US administration of Barak Obama, who was the architect of the US-NATO attack on Syria beginning in 2011 for ‘regime change’. Given the fact, which President Trump publically stated, the kings and princes of the Persian Gulf are only in power at the behest and allowance of the US, the Arabs were not afforded the luxury of refusing the US when asked to fund the US-backed terrorists.
Some critics had claimed Obama was himself a follower of the Muslim Brotherhood, as evidenced by the many members he had closely associated with in the US; however, others have assessed that while he may have been sympathetic to the group, in reality, he was only using the Radical Islamic ideology to instigate an insurrection in Syria for ‘regime change’.
Iran and their Persian Gulf neighbors share not only geography but also an aversion to Radical Islam. However, one is seen as the enemy of the US, and the others are close allies who host some of the largest US military bases on earth.
Russia
Dr. Saad Al-Jabri revealed that the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was encouraging Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene in Syria two months before the Russian armed forces entered the battlefield in October 2015, which effectively ended any chance of a military victory for the armed Syrian opposition, although the Kingdom had previously supported them.
At the same time, Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani, later assassinated by Trump, was also asking the Russians to enter Syria militarily to fight the terrorists who were fighting to create an Islamic State in Damascus, in another example of commonalities between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are opposed to any democratic movement within the region. In Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, or Libya, the Persian Gulf monarchies prefer secular autocrats, such as President Assad of Syria. They specifically do not want a leader following Radical Islam, such as the Muslim Brotherhood leader of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In 2017 Trump cut the CIA program to the terrorists, and Trump washed his hands of the Obama nightmare in Syria. Eventually, Saudi Arabia stopped funding terrorist groups in Syria.
Saudi Arabia has been funding the US troops in north-east Syria, where they protect the Kurdish SDF and YPG, and steal Syria’s oil, at a cost of $500 million and counting.
The Saudi goal is to curb Iranian influence in Syria while undermining the terrorists. The Turkish backed terrorists, following the Radical Islamic platform of the Muslim Brotherhood, are unacceptable to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ strategy managed to limit further Iranian expansion in his four years in office, but it could not hold it or even reverse Iranian progress on the ground in the Middle East. By trusting Trump’s plan, Saudi Arabia lost its influence and failed to counter Iran, which is stronger than before, and the incoming Biden administration has promised to make a deal with them.
Gulf unity
Gulf leaders signed a “solidarity and stability” agreement towards ending the diplomatic rift with Qatar at a summit in Saudi Arabia on January 5.
The announcement was made at the Gulf Arab leaders’ meeting in Saudi Arabia, with the annual summit taking place amid a breakthrough in the dispute between a Saudi Arabia-led bloc and Qatar that started in June 2017.
The five-points made concerning Syria were: affirming the goals of UN resolution 2254; support of the Syrian Constitutional Committee; support for bringing refugees and displaced Syrians back to their homes; support to preserve the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic; condemnation of the Iranian presence in Syria, and Iran’s interference in the Syrian affairs, and demanded the removal of all Iranian forces, Hezbollah and all sectarian militias that Iran had recruited to operate in Syria.
Qatar
Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, former prime minister of Qatar, said in 2017, that there had been a relationship with Jibhat al-Nusra, which was the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. However, he said that any resources sent to terrorists in Syria had US approval.
“Anything that went to Turkey and was coordinated with US forces,” he explained, while adding, “All distribution was done through the US and the Turks and us and everyone else that was involved, the military people.”
He also said that he had been sent by the emir of Qatar to meet with then Saudi king Abdullah and received his backing for the support for the terrorists in Syria.
Qatar has been a major supporter of the terrorists since 2011. A report by the Financial Times in 2013 said the country had spent as much as $3bn bankrolling armed groups in the country.
Saudi Arabia had coordinated closely with Qatar on delivering resources to terrorists in Syria; but in 2017 Saudi Arabia, along with others, had blockaded Qatar based on accusations of supporting terrorist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Trump had cut off support to the terrorists in Syria in 2017, and the US expected all Arab allies to follow their directive; however, Qatar did not, instead teaming-up with the Muslim Brotherhood leader, President Erdogan of Turkey, who invaded Syria and developed a large terrorist army who he calls the Syrian National Army.
Qatar pulled its ambassador from Syria in 2011 and remains staunchly against the Syrian government, while in support of the terrorists who are killing unarmed Syrian civilians. Qatar has provided substantial funding to terrorists, and by 2011 Qatar’s foreign minister confirmed the country’s support for the Syrian National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army. Qatar is supportive of the Turkish invasion of Syria and continues to support ‘regime change’ in Syria, regardless of the fact both Syria and Qatar have close ties with Iran.
UAE
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) reopened its embassy in 2018 after 7 years of closure, marking a diplomatic boost for President Assad. The UAE said the move aimed to normalize ties and to curb Iran in the region and had been training Syrian intelligence officers and pilots for two years.
“The UAE decision … came after a conviction that the next stage requires the Arab presence and communication in the Syrian file,” tweeted Anwar Gargash, the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs.
The reopening of the embassy is a step towards Syria’s normalization among the Arab world, as its membership in the Arab League was suspended seven years ago, though most Arabs states now want Syria to be readmitted.
The UAE was one of several regional states to back the terrorists, though its role was less prominent than those of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or Turkey; however, it sees a huge opportunity to participate in the massive reconstruction of Syria estimated between $250 billion and $1 trillion.
Gulf Arab states have been in the news in recent months as they normalize relations with Israel. At the same time, some are reestablishing ties with the Syrian government in Damascus.
The Gulf Arab states pulled their ambassadors from Damascus, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) recognized the National Coalition of the Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as the “legitimate representative” of the Syrian people at the directive of the US and EU.
Beginning in 2015, the Russians helped the Syrian government control the main political and economic centers, such as Damascus, the coastal region, and Aleppo. By now, the idea of bringing down Assad ceased to be a practical policy for most Gulf Arab countries, as well as the US and EU.
Following the footsteps of the UAE, Bahrain reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2018 while emphasizing opposition to Iran’s role in the region and limiting Turkey’s influence
Oman was clear about its humanitarian and diplomatic approach toward the Syrian war and did not finance rebel groups, and the sultanate has reinstated its ambassador to Syria.
Much of the funding for terrorists in Syria had come from Gulf private citizens, particularly Kuwaitis, according to US officials in 2013.
Saudi Arabia’s response to the Syrian uprising was strategic in that it focused on a proactive foreign policy through Gulf alliances that aimed at suppressing Iranian influence.
Turkey
Since the battle for Aleppo in late 2016, it became clear to GCC states that the Syrian government was going to maintain its hold on power. This prompted many Gulf states to shift their policies, making their priority curbing Iranian and Turkish influence in Syria.
Turkey’s relations with Saudi Arabia have suffered as a result of Erdogan’s aggressive foreign policy to exert its influence in the Mediterranean and Africa.
Ankara and Riyadh’s competition for regional dominance could be easing as countries’ leaders pledge to improve ties amid the COVID 19 pandemic.
Turkey hopes by approaching Saudi Arabia, it would help the economy in the wake of a Gulf boycott of Turkish goods and products.
Turkish-Saudi relations could also lead to a regional diplomatic reset which could directly affect Syria.
The National Coalition of the Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, are the big losers. Their militia, the Free Syrian Army, lost the backing of the US-EU, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Qatar and Turkey are now singled out as the last state sponsors of Radical Islam in the Syrian conflict.
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With regard to the coverage of the Wednesday Capitol Event, Global Research will be publishing opposing and contradictory points of view by several of our authors.
We are dealing with a complex and far-reaching political process. We are at the crossroads of a major political, economic and social crisis which has bearing on the future of the United States. This crisis must be the object of debate and analysis rather than confrontation of opposing political narratives.
The following is the testimony of a person who was in the Rally on Wednesday, January 6 2020. It presents a personal perspective.
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Contrary to Big Media’s Big Fat Lies, the Save America rally on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, was in my opinion an exhilarating, momentous, peaceful protest.
Spoiler alert: I did not make it inside the Capitol, but I was in the first 25% wave of people that arrived, and like 99.9% of those around me, I jubilantly participated in a peaceful “storming” of the Capitol.
A friend I’ll call “Bill” invited me to go to Washington for what was shaping up to be an historic event. We took the train down from New York the night before and stayed at the apartment of his brother “Jim.” Bill is a former lefty type who quips that the left had to work awfully hard to get him to be the Trump supporter he now is. Jim got totally fed up with the Democrats and is now an avid Trump supporter.
On arrival to the Ellipse where Trump would speak, I can say based on many Washington marches under my belt that the Save America rally’s turn-out was spectacular. I heard reports of a million plus present. We will likely never get an official crowd estimate from the National Park Service.
I’ve been to marches large and small, but I don’t recall encountering such a polite, well-mannered crowd. Bill had been to a prior Trump rally and Jim had been to three (Johnstown, Trump’s hospital vigil, November 3).
They said every rally is the same: uncommonly good, nice people. I figured their love of Trump colored their characterization of the President’s base. But I discovered at the rally that it’s an actual thing: Trump supporters are by and large decent, down-to-earth, genuine people.
I saw many women at the rally, and tons of young people. Contrary to the drumbeat that Trump supporters are racist white supremacists, Bill and Jim told me that the rallies they attended were very diverse: Sikhs, African Americans, Cubans, Mexican, Vietnamese. The election numbers prove this out, with Trump gaining incredible traction with Black and Hispanic voters. From what I saw, this Save America rally was almost all White. I never did get a good answer why Trump’s diverse base did not get to D.C. for this rally.
I have to say I was truly surprised how incredibly informed almost everyone I met was. The conversations I had revealed big-picture thinkers as well as familiarity with granular details. Those I spoke with certainly defied the stereotypical depictions of dumb deplorables.
As expected, there were a lot of Christians in the crowd, some of whom I had great talks with. I’m not a Christian, but I respected their deep faith and the fact that Christians I’ve been meeting of late (not Zionist Christians) are intensely engaged with the pressing political issues of our age. I was expecting to see Orthodox Jews, but didn’t, although I saw the Israeli flag a couple times.
Trump finally came on at 12:00pm and in my opinion he spoke with gravitas. I appreciated that he came right out and told the crowd to remember all the Republicans who have ended up being turncoats, and the audience appropriately booed on cue. (Check out how Mitt Romney was heckled—uncued—on his flight to D.C.)
We left the Ellipse a little early to make it to the Capitol by 1:00pm when the certification proceedings were scheduled to commence. I assumed everyone would rally outside the Capitol. Some people were saying we should go in and demand the Senate do the right thing, but I didn’t hear anyone echo that idea.
People were angry and disgusted, saying they’ve had enough and they’re not taking it anymore. The stench of the Georgia election the day before was in the air. While the demonstrably stolen national elections were the coup de grace, the Biden Crime Family, China, the lockdowns, the riots and looting, and the totalitarian threat of a Democratic win all figured prominently in people’s minds and emotions, and I saw many protest signs that expressed those concerns.
Walking to the Capitol, we learned that Pence was going to throw Trump under the bus. The feelings of injustice were palpable. Appropriately, the crowd made a pit stop at the Department of Justice en route to the Capitol. The crowd was really wound up, roaring chants like “Do your work!,” “Shame on you!,” and “Crime scene!”
There were two officials standing in front of the DoJ, and they weren’t the slightest bit worried that this keyed-up crowd might start pelting them with rotten eggs or something. While I saw one protester employ an actual pitchfork to carry his protest sign, I did not see a single visible weapon the entire time. So much for White men and their guns. Yes, people were angry. Yes, people were venting. But I felt very safe with this crowd.
As we were walking down Constitution Avenue, it dawned on me that there were virtually no police anywhere. They were surely around, but on the thirty-minute walk to the Capitol, we didn’t see a single police officer. I did spy an undercover man with an ear wire and then a few police cars diagonally parked at intersections, but that’s it.
I was really taken aback by the conspicuous absence of a police presence. Every major march I’ve been to, the streets are fully lined with police, sometimes on horses. I remember being terrified once at a New York City protest when a cop on an enormous steed charged into us demonstrators.
Bill, Jim, and I got to the Capitol about 1:30pm before much of the crowd had arrived and saw protesters running up the steps. We were surprised to see so many going up the steps because we assumed there was a police barrier.
We smelled tear gas and heard flash-bang grenades going off in the distance, but very soon the disturbance fizzled and the unruffled crowd paid no more attention to the possibility of violence—especially since no reinforcements came at all until we left the event at 4:00pm. It was at that time—finally—that police cars began converging on the site as we were walking away.
For some, entering the Capitol was very easy. I talked to a young Asian man who couldn’t believe how easy it was to enter the building. A White guy told me he went in and out several times. Apparently, there were various entrances.
Dozens of people were rushing up the stairway and congregating on the balconies. Where we were, though, there was gridlock on the steps. The long line prompted many to climb the walls, the scaffolding, and construction trailer roofs, which is what we did, and it gave us a panoramic bird’s eye view.
There was a tremendous sense of excitement. Dozens of people, even hundreds, could have easily “stormed” the Capitol, but chose not to. In fact, a relatively extremely small number entered the building. In my opinion, most did not go in because there was so much camaraderie and patriotic zeal taking place outside. Crowds were singing the Star Spangled Banner, and of course chanting “USA! USA!” The energy was electric, 100% positive, and we were determined to make sure our presence was known to the lawmakers inside who we assumed were deliberating on the certification.
For a crowd this size and in light of the crimes that had been done against our country, the heightened energy flowing amongst us could have been combustible. But we protesters had about as much malevolence as an energized Superbowl crowd.
Because the vast majority of the crowd was not engaging in violence, I suggest that there was a Charlottesville-type situation in which Antifa types violently breached the Capitol despite filmed instances of Trump supporters trying to stop them.
And just as with Charlottesville that likewise brimmed with agents provocateur, the media are now demonizing the Trump protesters with the calumny of White supremacism—and implicitly treating them as proxies for the 70 to 80 million Trump voters.
I spoke with a middle-aged White guy who was 20 feet behind the late Ashli Babbit. He told me he heard a shot, saw her fall down, and that she was hit in the neck. He said there were people on the scene who told everyone to leave so they could attend to her. He did not tarry, and had to leave through a broken glass door. He struck me as someone who was in a state of semi-shock. His parting words to me were how fortunate he felt because he “could have been that person.”
Let’s be clear, the so-called Capitol riot was trifling compared to the violent rioting and looting in U.S. cities by Black Lives Matter and Antifa mobs. These events were shamelessly excused by the media, and many celebrities as well as Kamala Harris paid for the bail of those arrested.
Of the 24 photos USA Today posted of “Damage inside the US Capitol,” the most damning consisted of debris, litter, and dust. Compare the property damage of January 6th to last summer when “mostly peaceful protesters” reduced vast swaths of Washington, D.C. to flames.
Biden and Black Lives Matter are now calling the Capitol police racist for treating the violent “Capitol breachers” (Antifa) with kid gloves. If the powers that be actually thought Trump supporters were dangerous extreme-right radicals with guns looking for trouble, wouldn’t the State have been armed to the teeth to protect the Capitol? I didn’t see any National Guard. I didn’t see any D.C. police.
About 3:00pm, with most everyone from the Ellipse now at the Capitol, we were on the lawn right next to a line of about 25 police officers who walked through the dense crowd in riot gear. They didn’t treat us as if we were “domestic terrorists,” and in turn we treated them respectfully.
Around 4:00pm, everyone began to get an emergency text message from D.C. Mayor Bowser saying a curfew would be in effect from 6:00pm that night until 6:00am the next day. Everyone dutifully began to leave.
Later when I was able to read the media’s reporting, I was dumbfounded to see something I had experienced as so peaceful, positive, and inspiring be described as violent, negative, and destructive. Black is white. War is peace. The stolen narrative of the Save America rally is my personal 1984 moment.
Part II: How a Life-Long Leftist Ended Up at a Trump “Save America” Rally
I am not a fan of Donald Trump, nor am I a “Q” devotee. I inherited a liberal Democrat tradition from my mother who is of Italian immigrant descent. Since 1992, I’ve always voted Green. In the 80s and 90s, I was active in anti-racist and ecofeminist movements. Around 2010, I emerged from a hiatus of political activity to discover a shocking fact: the 9/11 Official Narrative was riddled with inaccuracies, if not outright lies.
I discovered my liberal-left community offered little information of value on 9/11, largely because leftist thought leaders dismissed unorthodox views as “conspiracy theories.” Thankfully, I went where the evidence took me, not where orthodox ideology dictated. I found myself surfing right-wing (!) websites and dialoguing with lions, and tigers, and libertarians, oh my!
By 2016, I had begun to cull the best of liberal-left and conservative-libertarian positions. My leftist colleagues made the binary assumption that if I wasn’t all-in for Hillary, I must be “for Trump.” Au contraire.By 2020, dismayed by the mind-muddle of Trump Derangement Syndrome, coupled with the weaponization of political identity, I now believe the liberal-left has completely devolved into unprincipled putrefying pus. Their most pernicious mission is hijacking our nation onto an express train to Totalitarianville.
Today I’m neither left nor right. Like so many other former lefty-liberals, I seek to align on common issues, not tribal loyalties. We embrace core values of a free society:
a) Common sense – the ability to think independently and rationally
b) Truth – a commitment to evidentiary facts and justice without censorship
c) Patriotism – love and respect for one’s country and its peoples
d) Faith – a belief that a higher spiritual force guides us all
I lived the first 18 years of my life in a small Indiana town, population 900, where my father’s people came from Ireland in the early 1800s and farmed the land. They were conservative Republicans—proto deplorables, if you will. Having now lived more than half my life in cosmopolitan New York City, I admit that culturally there remains a significant gap between me and my new We-the-People allies. Nonetheless, these days I feel a very strong, authentic connection to my roots, rural America, where locals deeply value liberty and our Constitutional freedoms.
So many lefty-liberals did not vote Democratic in 2020 in large part because they recognize that what are notionally called Democrats is now armored with the full array of Deep State Establishment Power, including Big Tech, Big Media-Entertainment, Big Pharma, Corporate Wall Street, the ABC agencies, the Academy, and the Nonprofit Industrial Complex. In cahoots with opportunistic Republicans, this Power intends to usher in a tyrannical Great Reset agenda and assassinate the Constitution—oh, except for the 25th Amendment.
I spoke with so many people at the January 6th Washington D.C. rally and learned that these folks incontrovertibly understand what Deep State Establishment Power is about. They know there is overwhelming evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. They know that seasoned coup makers created chaotic conditions with the mail-in ballot scam, and they gaslight constituents to believe the election was fair. More alarming, they accuse Trump of fomenting a coup that they themselves are in the midst of orchestrating as we speak.
Under the guise of audacious cunning lies and manipulative propaganda, a very criminal element cheated its way to power. That’s why the rally was called Save America. And that is what all common sense, truth-loving, patriotic, faithful Americans must do—rise to the occasion to Save America.
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Cat McGuire is an activist and writer who lives New York City. She works with Break The Spell, a public outreach group raising awareness about the Covid plandemic and the Great Reset.
All images in this article are from Occidental Observer
“It is easier to deceive people than to convince them that they have been deceived.” — Mark Twain
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We bring to the attention of our readers a series of quotations by the CDC, FDA, scientists and medical doctors (emphasis added) compiled by Dr. Gary Kohls.
Media reports as well as government officials have failed to outline the nature of the PCR Test. The public has been been deliberately misinformed.
We suggest that you bring these quotations to the attention of the government officials who are enforcing the Lockdown.
Covid-19 Quotations: Questioning PCR Reliability
“Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms. The performance of this test has not been established for monitoring treatment of 2019-nCoV infection. This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.” — The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention
“Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms. The performance of this test has not been established for monitoring treatment of 2019-nCoV infection. This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.” — The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention
“…false positive results will occur regularly, despite high specificity, causing unnecessary community isolation and contact tracing, and nosocomial infection if inpatients with false positive tests are cohorted with infectious patients.” — The European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
“I’m skeptical that a PCR test is ever true. It’s a great scientific research tool. It’s a horrible tool for clinical medicine.” — Dr. David Rasnick, biochemist and protease developer
“…up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus.” — The New York Times
“A positive RT-qPCR result may not necessarily mean the person is still infectious or that he or she still has any meaningful disease.” — Michael R Tom, Michael J Mina
“Detection of viral RNA does not necessarily mean that a person is infectious and able to transmit the virus to another person” — The World Health Organization
“Caution needs to be applied to the results as it often does not detect infectious virus. PCR results may lead to restrictions for large groups of people who do not present an infection risk.” — The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine
“positive results […] do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite.” —FDA
“A positive RT-qPCR result may not necessarily mean the person is still infectious or that he or she still has any meaningful disease.” — Michael R Tom, Michael J Mina
1. What is the use of the PCR test for SARS-CoV-2? This is obviously a trick question, because there is no such thing as “the test”, and that is a problem.
2. A PCR test works if gene sequences are found in the smear that indicate the presence of a virus. Tests can search for multiple gene sequences or for one; this decision influences the sensitivity and the error rate.
3. In order for a gene sequence to be recognized optically, it must first be duplicated (amplified) in several cycles. The number of cycles at which the test takes effect is called “cycle threshold” or ct for short. A ct value of 25 means that the gene sequence was recognized after 25 cycles, with a value of 40 it was only recognized after 40 cycles. At high ct values, the test is so sensitive that it reacts to the smallest quantities of particles.
4. While everything is standardized in the modern world, organizations like the WHO or the RKI refuse to standardize the PCR test. Since no one knows which laboratories are looking for which gene sequences and from which ct values they report positive results, all speculations about sensitivity and specificity are irrelevant.
5. The only thing that is clear is that handling or manufacturing errors can lead to grossly wrong measures. 77 NFL players tested positive in one fell swoop, and all results were false-positive, as post-testing showed. Similarly, the tests on 12 crew members of “Mein Schiff 6” were false-positive. You can find these and other examples in my retweet of October 5, 2020.
6. A positive test result does not mean that the person concerned is infectious, ie that it can infect other people. Nonetheless, positive test results are followed by serious encroachments on fundamental rights such as quarantine, company or school closings.
7. PCR tests were designed to determine the cause of the disease in symptomatically ill patients in order to ensure appropriate treatment. They were not intended for mass screening of healthy people.
8. Due to the WHO guidelines, PCR mass tests are misused, a) deceased persons are counted as “corona deaths” regardless of the real cause of death, provided they had previously had a positive test result and b) all people who tested positive are classified as “infectious” . While travel and sports companies can enforce repetitions of tests with positive results, ordinary people and students are often denied this counter-evidence.
9. Especially when viewed globally, the number of positive test results exceeds the imagination. Similar shocking numbers could also be obtained through indiscriminate mass tests for influenza or other viruses, which in individual cases are similarly dangerous or even fatal as SARS-CoV-2.
10. From all this there is the demand for an immediate end of the PCR mass tests and for a return to the previous routine, according to which only sick people are tested and the general situation is monitored by sentinels. Once the “numbers” have disappeared from the media, the general hysteria can gradually subside.
Lost in this whole pandemic hysteria are some key considerations that when carefully analyzed place the whole COVID-19 narrative in a highly questionable light. The gatekeepers of information dissemination are manufacturing consent at an alarming rate, but their fatigue is setting in, and their masks are falling off. What better, albeit unlikely, source to go for some much needed illumination than the New York Times?
During a considerably quieter time, back in 2007, the New York Times featured a very interesting exposé on molecular diagnostic testing — specifically, the inadequacy of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test in achieving reliable results. The most significant concern highlighted in the Times report is how molecular tests, most notably the PCR, are highly sensitive and prone to false positives. At the center of the controversy was a potential outbreak in a hospital in New Hampshire that proved to be nothing more than “ordinary respiratory diseases like the common cold.” Unfortunately, the results wrought by the PCR told a different story.
Thankfully, a faux epidemic was avoided but not before thousands of workers were furloughed and given antibiotics and ultimately a vaccine, and hospital beds (including some in intensive care) were taken out of commission. Eight months later, what was thought to be an epidemic was deemed a non-malicious hoax. The culprit? According to “epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists … too much faith in a quick and highly sensitive molecular test….led them astray.” At the time, such tests were “coming into increasing use” as maybe “the only way to get a quick answer in diagnosing diseases like … SARS and deciding whether an epidemic is under way.”
Nevertheless, today, the PCR test is considered the gold standard of molecular diagnostics, most notably in the diagnosis of COVID-19. However, a closer analysis reveals that the PCR has actually been pretty spotty and that false positives abound. Thankfully, the New York Times is once again on the case.
“Your Coronavirus Test is Positive; Maybe it Shouldn’t Be,” according to NYT reporter Apoorva Mandavilli. Essentially, positive results are getting tossed around way too frequently. Rather, they should probably be reserved for individuals with “greater viral load.” So how have they’ve been doing it all this time you ask?
“The PCR test amplifies genetic matter from the virus in cycles; the fewer cycles required, the greater the amount of virus, or viral load, in the sample… the more likely the patient is to be contagious.”
Unfortunately, the “cycle threshold” has been ramped up.
What happens when it’s ramped up? Basically, “huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus” are deemed infected.
However, the severity of the infection is never quantified, which essentially amounts to a false positive. Their level of contagion is essentially nil.
How are they determining the cycle threshold? If I didn’t suspect that it was based on maximizing the amount of “cases,” I would find the determination pretty arbitrary. More than a few of the professionals on record for Times report appear pretty perplexed on this vital detail which is essentially driving “clinical diagnostics for public health and policy decision-making.”
Considering all that’s at stake and everything that hinges on positive vs negative case tallies, it’s outrageous that these tests would be tweaked in a way that would inflate the positive rate totals and percentages. According to one virologist, “any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive.” She went on to to say, “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive.”
Personally, I think the science is just about settled on COVID-19.
The conclusion? We’ve been duped!
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” Let’s make sure we are clear… This is not a vaccine. They are using the term “vaccine” to sneak this thing under public health exemptions. This is not a vaccine.” Dr David Martin
This means that all those ‘pushing this non vaccine … this untested, experimental toxin‘ are now complicit.
Scroll down for complete transcript of Dr. Martin’s statement
***
Video Program
Clarion Call with host Sacha Stone
and guests Dr Judy Mikovits, Dr. David Martin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr andConstitutional Lawyer Rocco Galati.
…
TRANSCRIPT
The bombshell revelation:
” Let’s make sure we are clear… This is not a vaccine. They are using the term “vaccine” to sneak this thing under public health exemptions. This is not a vaccine.” Dr David Martin
This means that all those ‘pushing this non vaccine … this untested, experimental toxin‘ are now complicit.
Our leadership who are actively participating in this malfeasance must be made aware that this participation will have consequence. This kind of complicity is no different than what the German doctors and scientists were accused of and went to trial for, at Nuremburg.
Dr David Martin gave to the world yesterday, the smoking gun that we can now claim Public Health in Canada (and around the world) has become weaponized.
Dr David Martin also gave us the understanding to help ‘we the people” reclaim the narrative.
“This is mRNA packaged in a fat envelope that is delivered to a cell. It is a medical device designed to stimulate the human cell into becoming a pathogen creator. It is not a vaccine. Vaccines actually are a legally defined term under public health law; they are a legally defined term under CDC and FDA standards.[1] And the vaccine specifically has to stimulate both the immunity within the person receiving it and it also has to disrupt transmission.
And that is not what this is. They (Moderna and Pfizer) have been abundantly clear in saying that the mRNA strand that is going into the cell is not to stop the transmission, it is a treatment. But if it was discussed as a treatment, it would not get the sympathetic ear of public health authorities because then people would say, “What other treatments are there?”
The use of the term vaccine is unconscionable for both the legal definition and also it is actually the sucker punch to open and free discourse… Moderna was started as a chemotherapy company for cancer, not a vaccine manufacturer for SARSCOV2. If we said we are going to give people prophylactic chemotherapy for the cancer they don’t yet have, we’d be laughed out of the room because it’s a stupid idea. That’s exactly what this is. This is a mechanical device in the form of a very small package of technology that is being inserted into the human system to activate the cell to become a pathogen manufacturing site.
And I refuse to stipulate in any conversations that this is in fact a vaccine issue. The only reason why the term is being used is to abuse the 1905 Jacobson case that has been misrepresented since it was written. And if we were honest with this, we would actually call it what it is: it is a chemical pathogen device that is actually meant to unleash a chemical pathogen production action within a cell. It is a medical device, not a drug because it meets the CDRH definition of a device. It is not a living system, it is not a biologic system, it is a physical technology – it happens to just come in the size of a molecular package.
So, we need to be really clear on making sure we don’t fall for their game. Because their game is if we talk about it as a vaccine then we are going to get into a vaccine conversation but this is not, by their own admission, a vaccine. As a result it must be clear to everyone listening that we will not fall for this failed definition just like we will not fall for their industrial chemical definition of health. Both of them are functionally flawed and are an implicit violation of the legal construct that is being exploited. I get frustrated when I hear activists and lawyers say, “we are going to fight the vaccine”. If you stipulate it’s a vaccine you’ve already lost the battle. It’s not a vaccine. It is made to make you sick.
80% of the people exposed to SARSCOV2 are asymptomatic carriers. 80% of people who get this injected into them experience a clinical adverse event. You are getting injected with a chemical substance to induce illness, not to induce an immuno-transmissive response. In other words, nothing about this is going to stop you from transmitting anything. This is about getting you sick and having your own cells be the thing that get you sick.
When the paymaster for the distribution of information happens to be the industry that’s doing the distributing, we lose. Because the only narrative is the one that will be compensated by the people writing the check. That goes for our politicians… and our media – it has been paid for – if you follow the money you realize there is no non-conflicted voice on any network.”
– Dr. David Martin, Jan 5th 2021,
[1] The word “vaccine” originates from the Latin Variolae vaccinae (cowpox), which Edward Jenner demonstrated in 1798 could prevent smallpox in humans. Today the term ‘vaccine’ applies to all biological preparations, produced from living organisms, that enhance immunity against disease and either prevent (prophylactic vaccines) or, in some cases, treat disease (therapeutic vaccines).
Please support the continuation of Dr. David Martin’s critical discovery work and the New Earth Media Team so we can continue to deliver this relevant content here:
Thirty years ago this month I was preparing for what would be a three-month tour of the Republic of South Africa. The original research objective—conceived in 1990—had been to visit mission stations and other properties and operations of Christian churches in South Africa and to collect data on their role and function in the system of statutory segregation known as apartheid. By the time I had made my travel arrangements, I was forced to modify an initial assumption of the doctoral dissertation for which this trip was to form the empirical basis—namely the end of apartheid rather than its continuance.
In February 1991, I arrived in Johannesburg. Nelson Mandela had been released from Robbin Island/ Polsmoor and the recently legalised African National Congress had joined the ruling National Party to negotiate the terms of transition to majority rule and an end to the racial segregation regime that had defined South Africa from 1948, reinforced by Hendrik Verwoerd when he declared independence from the British Empire in 1961. That research was published in 1997 as Church Clothes. [1]
During the year past, I have tried repeatedly to find the appropriate context in which to review the two most recent books published by historian Gerald Horne, White Supremacy Confronted and the Dawning of the Apocalypse. Professor Horne’s White Supremacy Confronted describes the origins of opposition to the Anglo-Dutch race regime in the African sub-continent and continues until the final end of NP rule in 1994. Horne’s prolific historical research, more than 30 books published, established him as a historian. However his South Africa book is not only scholarship but also first hand reporting, even autobiographical in quality. Before becoming a professor of history, Gerald Horne was a lawyer and political activist personally involved in the US side of the struggles for African independence and against racialist regimes installed under colonialism and, as in the case of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, maintained in post-colonial regimes.
This particular experience gives White Supremacy Confronted a personal quality, almost like a memoir. Horne does not have to confine his examination to documentary evidence. He is in a position to have witnessed many of the events and activities he studies personally. Professor Horne also says so repeatedly in the text. Sometimes tongue-in-cheek, these confessions also make clear that the confrontation about which he writes was always personally relevant and not academic. At the same time his observations permit him to add an assessment of the personalities involved in the struggles and how those persons shaped the history he describes.
As the struggle focuses on ending apartheid, the crescendo comes with the collapse of the German Democratic Republic and its annexation by the Federal Republic, followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its emasculation under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was accompanied by the infamous “shock therapy” squad under Jeffrey Sachs. While not deprecating the years of struggle in South Africa itself and among the African diaspora, Horne is quite clear that South Africa’s future was cast by the end of the “bipolar” world and the triumph of the USA as the sole superpower and its resilient regime of white supremacy.
At this moment my experience and Horne’s overlapped since I witnessed in Berlin the first manifestations of the collapse on that fateful weekend in November 1989. During the first half of 1991 I would discuss the future of South Africa with members of the ANC who until that time had debated the socialist options for a new dispensation. Although the constitution of post-apartheid South Africa was only adopted in 1994, I was able to listen to those whose views would be marginalised or modified as the African National Congress under Mandela and Mbeki steered the country away from the principles of land reform upon which it had been founded and into the great parasite-infested swamp of neo-liberalism where it would be bled of all the resources needed to raise its majority to decent living standards. The last of the explicitly race-based regimes was dismantled with hardly a trace of change to the society it had created. In that sense South Africa had reached the stage of ideological development achieved by the United States in 1954. Horne’s book is a unique history of all the interlocking confrontations. It links personalities and movements and shows the complex relationships between the US and Africa throughout the 20th century, both for Africans and African-Americans
The Dawn of the Apocalypse is a step back from his The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism (2018). Whereas in the latter Horne asserts, following an argument he made in the previous study The Counter-Revolution of 1776 (2014), that the essential qualities that made the United States “exceptional” were a product of the demographic and political developments in Europe in the “long Sixteenth Century”. In the Counter-Revolution Horne says that the war of independence that led to the creation of the US was driven primarily by the fear among the colonial elite that the British government would sacrifice the slave trade and chattel slave regime upon which the North American elite had built its wealth for opportunistic reasons—the effective pacification of its Caribbean island colonies. To avoid what was seen then as potential expropriation of colonial assets, the landowners in the South and merchants in the North agreed to expel the British and preserve the settler regime they had built on the trade in and exploitation of bonded labour.
In The Apocalypse he goes on to argue that the regime of white supremacy, beyond merely the concept of “whiteness”, developed first in the Caribbean as a means of overcoming the fratricidal relationships that predominated among the tribes of the Western peninsula (aka as Europe). These comprised violent religious bigotry, ethnic antagonisms, imperial competition, and rival banditry. The inability to recruit or impress sufficient numbers of labourers from Europe to exploit the “New World” plantations induced their owners to import African slaves. However these slave populations invariably multiplied beyond the capacity of plantation management to control them. In the course of imperial competition, African populations soon realised that they could use their numerical superiority to advantage by selective alliance with competitors, e.g. siding with the Spanish against the English or the English against the French, etc.
In order to discourage this labour resistance, a system of privilege evolved in the colonies calculated to reduce antagonisms between ordinary Europeans. For example disabilities and discrimination against Jews, Catholics, or Protestants were reduced or eliminated. Thus the antagonists in the Thirty Years War were at least partially reconciled in the New World in favour of pan-Europeanism, otherwise known as whiteness. This religious freedom, largely unavailable in the Old World until the 20th century, formed the core of what would become the exceptional “freedom” in the exceptional nation born in 1776.
In The Dawning, the milestones of social transformation are the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the ascendancy of the Christian monarchies, the shift in control over the slave trade to Britain and its emergent naval and commercial superiority. This is by no means an uninterrupted success story. Nor does Horne ignore domestic events beyond obvious human control. By the time Britain becomes the premier maritime power, converting its state-sponsored piracy into that majestic force that would “rule the waves” and the trade in slaves, two more centuries would pass. However it was the marginal position that Britain occupied in the Sixteenth Century that would allow it to exploit the conflicts between Catholic Europe and the Ottoman Empire as well as the great rivalry between Spain and France. Thus opportunism yielded tolerance and Albion’s perfidy enabled it to capture the assets and wealth of dissolving realms. The gradual accumulation of these resources gave Britain the capacity to overwhelm its European rivals. The British crown avoided most of the land wars that would deplete Spain’s population, treasury and military strength. Its splendid isolation and the seas surrounding proved insurmountable obstacles to its principal rivals. Religious intolerance and severe persecution forced much of the talented and wealthy commercial class to flee Catholic bigotry to the Protestant states, e.g. the Netherlands and England further weakening Spain’s competitive position. In essence, settler colonialism—the principal characteristic of the British Empire and the cornerstone of the United States—was catalysed by the decline of Catholic Spain. As Horne asks provocatively, was the US born in 1588 with the defeat of the Spanish Armada off the shores of Great Britain?
Both The Apocalypse and The Dawning bracket the term of the 45th POTUS, Donald J. Trump. In fact, Professor Horne makes explicit reference to the real estate magnate and one-term US President.
“Still, Republicans could boast about their retreat from the poison of St. Bartholomew 1572. In 2018, the US president, Donald J. Trump, was perplexed to find that there were no Protestants on the highest court of the land: all were either Catholic or Jewish. ‘You had all Protestants’, he remarked in a burst of bafflement, ‘and then in a few years none. Doesn’t that seem strange… you should be able to have the main religion in this country represented on the Supreme Court.’ Apparently, he did not fully comprehend the construction of “whiteness” and the gigantic step toward building the Republic over which he presided. Yet the continuing persistence of racism continued to bear the seeds of a pernicious bigotry that in the longer term—like a loose thread on a well-sewn suit—could unravel the finely wrought ‘whiteness’ leading to a recrudescence of, for example, anti-Jewish fervor, suggested by a number of troubling incidents, including murderous attacks on synagogues and pro-Nazi marches.”[2]
While Gerald Horne makes a strong case for the origins of white supremacy in the settler colonial strategy of the British Empire, particularly in its sister the US American Empire, the interpretation of contemporary America suggested in his conclusion does not do justice to his otherwise convincing arguments.
The unprecedented attacks on a reigning POTUS over the past four years beg for explanation. Even at the height of the Watergate hearings, Richard Nixon, with an unpopular war raging, was never visited with the vitriol rained upon Mr Trump even before he had served a day in office. William J. Clinton was never attacked so viciously during his impeachment trial and his acquittal was accepted with equanimity. As I have written elsewhere, Donald Trump has been accused of threatening the very existence of the capitalist economic order, all manner of corruption, collaboration with foreign powers, failure to support the foreign policy of his predecessors (or more exactly the foreign policy establishment), all manner of sedition and yes, racism. For four years he has been called the worst US president ever, not only in the US media but also in media and by governments in foreign countries. [3]
Aside from the fact that racism is endemic in the US ruling class, Donald Trump’s behaviour has certainly been no worse than that of any other POTUS of “European descent”. Where this is grudgingly admitted the legions of his opponents have claimed that he animates the racist and white supremacist elements in the population and lends them moral support—because he does not follow the official language of his predecessor. These claims, like those which assert that the POTUS is bound to follow the foreign policy dictated by senior civil servants or external consultants of the Establishment, have been formulated uniquely to justify the rejection of Donald Trump because he is the first POTUS chosen since 1980 who is not the personal choice of the Bush dynasty and the first POTUS in at least a century who was neither a civil servant, military officer, or professional politician prior to his nomination and election. In other words, Donald J. Trump was the first genuine outsider to be elected US president in anyone’s living memory and possibly in the recorded history of the United States. Those are the principal and true reasons for the constant attacks on him and his administration—regardless of substantive failures or disagreements one could have over policies associated with Mr Trump.
That said, Gerald Horne’s analysis offers an analysis of the Trump phenomenon, which can be derived from his theory—although he refrains from any such derivation.
The ideology of settler colonialism, “whiteness” or “pan-Europeanism” developed and was anchored in US legislation and jurisprudence in two phases. The first phase, its inception, not only creates the “white man” from all those religious antagonists, it gives birth to the British form of the Enlightenment and its ideas of liberty—only added to US Constitution as an afterthought, but fundamental for securing the support of the yeomanry which would still need to slaughter indigenous for the next century in the name of Manifest Destiny. These particularly British Enlightenment liberties were, with the exception of religion, tied to property qualifications. Freedom was the freedom to own things (including people) and owners were endowed with inalienable rights (to property). All liberty was essentially derived from property and with an expanding continental empire the chance to acquire property become somewhat more democratic. As in England, liberty and property were understood as a unit. Settler colonialism permitted liberty to be expanded as long as the supply of property was unlimited. The contradictions between liberty as property and property in bonded labour led to civil war in 1860.
With the passage of the 13th amendment bonded labour as a class was abolished. Instead it was converted into a judicial condition. The destruction of the Civil War gave rise to the first generation of the military-industrial complex in the US. The heavy industry engendered by the federal war machine needed labour and that labour came from Europe. However for the new waves of settlers there was very little in the way of property to offer. By the end of the 19th century these immigrants were beginning to pose a threat to the nation’s owners, its ruling class. The liberty demanded was freedom in the cities, in the workplaces—factories and mines. Free labour demanded those rights (in fact privileges) that had been inscribed in the Constitution as citizens and workers, not as property owners. The legal construction of whiteness again served to integrate the European labourers. Their “whiteness” made the Americans and their numbers majorities, especially in urban concentrations and the rural towns of the South. By the time the US entered World War I, pan-Europeans constituted a majority throughout most of the United States. The political and labour movements of the late 19th century had succeeded in extending the franchise to all male adult citizens, while effectively depriving African-Americans of the vote or effective representation.
This was the “white” majority that would become synonymous with American for most of the 20th century. It was the majority to which the ruling class appealed in two world wars. It was the majority that was disciplined by the anti-communist purges. It was the “silent majority” that Nixon rightly believed supported his Vietnam War policy. This was the majority, which was led to believe that the ruling oligarchy governed in its interest too.
The war against Korea, in fact a continuation of the US war to dominate China, was the first real crisis for the regime of white supremacy and its dogma of whiteness. The US sent a segregated military force to the Korean peninsula where it was being badly beaten by armies of “yellow” people. Segregationist POTUS Harry Truman was forced to order the integration of the US military not only to improve the fighting morale in a war the US is still fighting (albeit with a fragile ceasefire on the battlefront) but to stabilise domestic conditions where Black American opposition to segregation was escalating. No sooner had the Korean ceasefire stopped overt military action, then the covert military action that would explode in Vietnam began. Although US military forces were integrated, it was mainly poor whites and blacks who were deployed to the rice patties and jungle to kill “gooks”. This not only added political tension, with recurring mutinies in the field, but to the number of potential dissidents in the military. The Black Panther Party expressed the consciousness that Black Americans were an “occupied” population. Malcolm X and Mohammed Ali both attacked the use of Blacks as soldiers to fight wars abroad ostensibly for rights they did not even enjoy at home.[4]
The Establishment waged a vicious covert war against Black Americans who demanded that they too were endowed with inalienable rights, the same ones supposedly pronounced in 1776. By 1975, when the great independence struggles in those countries that had been European colonies had ended, the most radical leaders of Black America were dead. Their organisations decimated by FBI and CIA “counter-intelligence programs” (COINTELPRO). Although not prohibited, members were assassinated, jailed, or driven into exile. Since the US regime has historically applied both carrots and sticks with great success, many of the junior or potential leadership were offered and accepted positions in compatible career tracks allowing them to advocate change “within the system”.
Financial support poured in from foundations and government to promote “cultural” approaches. Culture focussed on history and identity. Imitating the theodicy of the American Dream, Black History became a story of the inevitable progress of the African slave, regrettably kidnapped and worked to death building the US, through his or her equally inevitable survivors (unlike indigenous peoples, slaves were too valuable to kill at will) to participation in the divine mission of the United States of America to save the world. In this story, most prosaically told in the 1970 TV mini-series Roots, the mission of every Black American is to find his or her identity. That identity may include the recreation of some African genealogy or the consolation of being a descendant of Thomas Jefferson. Just as every “ethnic” European was to revel in Italian, German, Bulgarian, or other national heritage, Black American was elevated to its own ethnic pedigree.
“Whiteness” did not disappear. Instead a parallel universe was created called “Blackness”. However while “Whiteness” was protected by centuries of law and institutional power, “Blackness” had none. As Malcolm X for one had argued, if someone abuses an Italian or a German in America, that person can claim a national government as protection. A Black American only has America and it does not protect its black citizens. In a dishonest attempt to manipulate public opinion and retain control of the political terrain, the policy of “affirmative action” was instituted. Since rights in the American system are still based essentially on property or wealth, the argument was made that Black Americans had been deprived of their opportunity to accumulate wealth and property by virtue of discriminatory laws and practices as well as vulgar racism. Therefore laws and practices had to be adopted to compensate for that lack of opportunity by creating opportunities for Black Americans (later for other groups so designated, e.g. women). This was rightly perceived as institutional favouritism. On its own there are good reasons for remedying a wrong by compensating the wronged person(s) with advantages they did not enjoy because of the wrong. However the compensation was demanded from people who could not see themselves as the tortfeasor. The remedy for discrimination against Black Americans was not to be paid by those who had profited en masse from the wrong but for those whose participation in the wrong was incidental or collateral to that done by the State or the commanding heights of society and economy.
The response of those who had been promoted through this and other policies intended to recruit compatible careerists was at first confused. While there was still something resembling a social justice movement in the US there were still some beneficiaries who argued that more resources had to be committed to levelling the playing field. However this was far too much like “socialism” or a class approach—both heresies in the US.
By 1980 however the last remnants of socialist-light, New Deal-type activism had been overwhelmed by the so-called Reagan Revolution that promised to “get government off your back”. Radical expansion of war expenditures coincided with cuts in every kind of budget that had been dedicated to modest equal opportunity policies. From 1980 until 2008 the Bush dynasty with its Clinton cadet branch would strip the meagre social welfare and social development operations of the federal government and with an unending succession of wars induce the greatest transfers of wealth to the super-rich in the 20th century. At the same time the US Empire was faced with the need, both at home and abroad, to pacify competitors and opposition. From 1989-1991, the Bush regime profited from the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the only competitive example for social and economic policy. Only Yugoslavia appeared resistant to the “market forces”. Expanded Germany joined its legacy fascists in Croatia together with the US to destroy the country and blame its failure on the government in Belgrade, assassinating the country’s leader in the process. The war against governments that pursued state policies of social and economic equity has continued unabated to this day. It was called the Global War on Terror.
While class struggle was effectively outlawed in the US in 1908 with the formation of what became the American Gestapo—the FBI—it was the Bush dynasty that destroyed its last remnants. The conditions of permanent global war rendered class models of social justice struggle permanently obsolete. However ideological innovation did not stop. In the US system, ideas are products to be marketed and sold like soap powder. Ivory Snow or rap, it makes no difference. The Clintons had restored the judicial slavery system through the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, with its notorious discrimination between misdemeanour “powder cocaine” and felonious “crack cocaine” as well as numerous provisions to assure that felony convictions would disenfranchise or otherwise deprive people of their civil (and human) rights. At the same time however the careerist generation that had benefitted from affirmative action and collaboration with the still mainly pan-European ruling class were competing in the second generation with the “middle class” members of that “white majority” that had been cultivated since the Republic’s founding. The children of the recruited generation with no ideology of their own except that inherited from the Reagan Revolution needed a new myth. That myth was drawn from the cultural identity movement and the theoretical analysis that became known as “post-modernism”. Cultural identity had already been harnessed to sell commodities in the 1970s. Now it was to be harnessed as a political ideology. History having been ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the possessive individual became the sole subject of human action and that action was to be fulfilled by the creation of identity or identities. The roles that previously were understood as contextualised in social action and organised human behaviour were converted into essences. Whereas until the 1970s feminism was based on the argument that women were equal to men and that their subjugation was based on the roles they were forced to play or the status those roles had in society, identity politics asserted that there is no woman or man, no gender since these are arbitrary. Instead one chooses gender and the roles are a natural consequence of the gender choice. Classical feminism was based on universal humanism.[5] Gender identity denies that there is any universal human species with two sexes based on reproduction. The logical extension of this argument is that “whiteness” or “blackness” is an individual choice and the consequences of choosing to be “white” or to be “black” are natural once that choice has been made.
Ironically identity politics exposes the legal fiction of “whiteness” that was used to create a fictive pan-European majority, even including the “deplorables” and “ugly” (the terms Clinton and Biden use to denote the poor and working class in the US). However the legal fiction is not exposed as the foundation of white supremacy and capitalism. It is formulated as initial choice, along with sex or sexuality, from which all other life results follow. Hence the very social conditions and historical development which led to what has been called “the New Jim Crow” and which have elevated a small percentage of the population to membership in the ruling class or at least as servants to the servants of Capital are denied.[6]
Since there are very few visible persons and audible voices from ordinary Black America in the corporate media, the challenges to this negation of historical and contemporary reality are seldom heard. After all Blackness never was allowed to constitute itself as a political movement protected by the State. However, the plundering of the United States by its ruling class has not gone unnoticed by that mass of people, mainly working class and poor, who have been told for a whole century that they are the “majority” and that in a democracy the majority has claims that cannot be ignored. This majority of “deplorables” and “ugly” were always a constructive majority maintained in the illusion of their status in order to suppress class conflict. That was after all the entire function of the second wave of “whiteness”—to keep the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe in their place but on the side of the Anglo elite that has ruled the country since its inception. The New Deal was devised to keep them on the side of the ruling class. That was why Franklin Roosevelt traded his social programs for continued Jim Crow in the South.
This “white majority” watched their standard of living stagnate in the 1970s and decline steadily while their Hollywood heroes told them that America was great. They watched their taxes go up, their wages go down and wars without end for which they had sacrificed sons and daughters. They watched the US government give trillions away and surrendered their homes to credit card usury. Because they were “white” they expected to be heard. Because they were “white” the regime promoted their prejudices but ignored their complaints. When Barack Obama was elected he made the biggest present to banks on record his first act of office. He was then reviled for introducing what reactionaries call some form of “socialised medicine” but what was in fact a huge grant to the insurance cartel with almost no gain in health care or coverage for ordinary citizens. It essentially raised taxes on an already overtaxed working class. In the US context—meanwhile the only context available in the West—it had become impossible to assert the claims that had justified the New Deal. It had become impossible to attack the economic system, never well understood. The only expression available to this “majority” without any class or other distinguishing characteristic was the traditional outlet—populism. Populism derives its legitimacy foremost from the claim to majority support. There is no theory of history or other doctrine to drive it. Populism is the raised voice of the masses screaming their grievances and demanding whatever remedies they can imagine under such mass conditions.
Populism is by definition without ideology and usually leaderless. That explains why the people who have become leaders of populist movements rarely have anything in common besides their ability to put themselves at the head of a majority. Donald J. Trump was not the first person in US history to exploit a populist opportunity. However he is the first one to be elected POTUS on a populist wave. This is the essence of the attack on Trump by the Establishment—that he emboldened the deplorable and ugly. The Establishment, represented by the Bush-Clinton gang, could never imagine a New York real estate mogul unafraid to stand in front of a huge crowd in Alabama and shout that the Bible was his favourite reading. They could never imagine that Donald Trump could win a “white majority”. The possibility that he had won a majority beyond merely those deplorable and ugly working class folks was a thought too horrible to contemplate.
Now it was time for the ruling class to call in its chits. When Mr Trump won the electoral college vote in 2017, despite all efforts by Hillary Rodham in the states with the most delegates, there were vindictive reasons for attacking him. However the far greater danger posed by Mr Trump was that he had been elected by the very “white majority” upon whom the ruling class had relied for legitimacy. The Democratic Party, the oldest and most clientelistic of the two private companies that operate the US regime, had relied for over a century on the docility of the “white majority” and now they were clearly in revolt. It was necessary therefore to breakup that “white majority”, to deprive it of its democratic claims to representation. This was the most important objective of the campaign to discredit, impeach and defeat Trump utterly.[7]
While there is no indication that either Trump or those loyal to him had any analysis of the political terrain in which they were fighting or the stakes involved, it is clear that such tactics as accusing him of fascism, dictatorship or racism were in fact aimed at his electoral base. These accusations were amplified by the identity cadres in the media and academia. In addition the “Mockingbird” tactic was used by having all these accusations echoed in Europe for rebroadcast within the US.[8] Although state violence against Black Americans has been a mainstay of US regime power, suddenly every incident was attributed to Donald Trump personally. His supporters were all denounced as racists or white supremacists. The point here is not whether Mr Trump or any of his followers are racist or not. Rather the objective was to stigmatise the traditional “majority” and force them to defend themselves or distance themselves from the person they had elected or be declared anathema. Identity cadres, especially the company known as Black Lives Matter, vastly funded by corporate tax dodges, together with other identity groups began a campaign to label all of this “white majority”—but conspicuously not the sources of their funds—as racists and white supremacists. Spectacles were created and staged the templates for which can be found in the works of Gene Sharp and virtually identical to actions sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy in Kiev and elsewhere.[9]
This campaign aimed to turn the discovery of “whiteness” into an argument for dissolving the pan-European majority. By asserting—correctly—that “whiteness” is a fiction and that the US was founded also to preserve chattel slavery (and annihilation of the indigenous, although that got almost no attention), not only was the claim of whiteness rejected but the constitution of a majority with majority claims on the political system and its allocation of resources. However this move to delegitimise the majority constituted by a fictive whiteness did not propose any other majority. Instead it promoted diversity and inclusion. Diversity can be satisfied in many ways without addressing majority needs. Inclusion is not the same as participation or self-determination. There was no proposal that would constitute majorities not based on “whiteness” for one simple reason. To do so would require asking what common qualities such a majority would have? If the attack on “whiteness” were really an attack on white supremacy it would have to go to the root of white supremacy as a dogmatic system for maintaining Capitalism and the oligarchy that rules the Anglo-American Empire.
In fact the strategic purpose of BLM and all of the other corporate armed propaganda elements is to destroy the concept of majority and with it the basis of any democratic system, whether electorally based or not. The central reason for the unprecedented attack on the Trump presidency lies in nothing Mr Trump or his administration have said or done. The Establishment wants to crush the only element of the US society that still had a claim based on numerical strength for a share of the country’s wealth and participation in its governance. No one would be so foolish as to believe that Black Americans could constitute a majority or even a plurality in the United States.
With at least 20 per cent of Black Americans subject to some kind of penal surveillance, they constitute no threat. The only other demographic group that could be constituted in serious numerical strength is women. Not only is their no historical precedence for a female electoral or political majority, the identity ideology of trans-genderism nullifies the claims of the pre-1980s feminism.
The process Gerald Horne describes as beginning in the Sixteenth Century, leading to the creation of “whiteness”, has also led to its disintegration. Having served its purpose, it is no longer a necessary part of white supremacy and capitalism, both of which flourish independent of skin pigmentation.
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Notes
[1] Church Clothes: Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa, Maisonneuve Press (2004)
[2] Gerald Horne, The Dawning of the Apocalypse, p. 213.
[3] “To the Halls of Montezuma from the Shores of Tripoli: Trump as Anti-Wilson”, Lobster 74 (2017)
[4] “Moderate Extremism and Extremist Moderation”, Dissident Voice (17 October 2015)
[5] Although objections can be made that any classification of feminism is arbitrary, the canonical—if not definitive—expression of mid-20th century feminism may be found in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949). Naturally there has been a wide range of theories proposed since, especially critical of de Beauvoir. However there is no disputing the book’s significance for feminism at least until the emergence of what became known as the “New Left” after 1968.
[6] Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness (2010)
[7] The same strategy was followed successfully in the French presidential elections that promoted Rothschild banker Emmanuel Macron to the Elysée Palace in May 2017. Francois Hollande had torpedoed his own PSF. “If they could change something they would be prohibited…” Dissident Voice (9 May 2017).
Thus the only alternative was Marie Le Pen from the Rassemblement National. The French establishment media promoted a campaign like the one used unsuccessfully to defeat Donald Trump by claiming that Le Pen was just a copy of her far-right father, Jean-Marie. The populist issues would emerge again with the so-called “Yellow Vests” (Mouvement des Gilets jaune) whose protests were then effectively muted by the constructive pandemic declared at the beginning of 2020. In Germany, the amorphous but clearly populist Allianz für Deutschland (AfD) has also been the target of the German establishment and the mass media, which claims that it is just a stalking horse for the far right. Ironically the German far right, esp. so-called neo-Nazis, have all been tied to covert operations by the secret police and intelligence agencies—wholly establishment in other words. Conspicuous among all these populist groups is their suspicion of neo-liberal monetary and economic policies as well as the states of emergency and other authoritarian measures adopted by their governments in conjunction with the constructive pandemic in 2020.
[8] Operation “Mockingbird” is the name given to a CIA program whereby material the agency generated would be planted through friendly journalists or editors in media abroad so that it could be cited in the US from an ostensibly independent, foreign source.
[9] A complete selection of the works of Gene Sharp and his collaborators can be found at the website of the Albert Einstein Institution, www.aeinstein.org.
At this late stage, days before Trump’s tenure ends, what’s going on aims to discredit and humiliate him more than already — for unjustifiable reasons, not the other way around.
On Friday, Dem House Speaker Pelosi said the following:
“It is the hope of members that (Trump) will immediately resign,” adding:
“But if he does not, I have instructed the rules committee to be prepared to move forward with Congressman Jamie Raskin’s 25th Amendment legislation and a motion for impeachment.”
Days ahead of his tenure’s end, Trump remains in office.
Pence reportedly opposes invoking the 25th Amendment.
While legal to take this step, using it to try removing Trump would defy why it became the law of the land.
It was done for succession in cases when a president dies in office or becomes unable to serve because of illness or incapacity.
It would corrupt the amendment’s purpose by seeking Trump’s removal from office for fabricated reasons — notably when his time in office is nearly over.
According to NBC News, at least two Dem House members intend to introduce one or more articles of impeachment on Monday.
Its draft obtained by NBC is titled “Incitement of Insurrection (sic).”
It falsely claims Trump “engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors by willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States (sic),” adding:
Trump “threatened the integrity of the democratic system (sic), interfered with the peaceful transition of power (sic), and imperiled a coordinate branch of government (sic).”
He betrayed “his trust as president, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States (sic).”
“(D)oing nothing is not an option (sic).”
NBC reported that the measure has over 150 co-sponsors.
It’s unclear how many Republicans will go along with what no one should support.
A two-thirds Senate super-majority is needed to convict and remove Trump from office.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy opposes impeachment.
As of Friday, only one Republican called for Trump’s removal — longtime DJT critic Mitt Romney.
GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski called on Trump to resign, saying nothing about impeachment.
GOP Senator Lindsey Graham issued a statement saying:
“Removing Trump from office would not only be unsuccessful in the Senate but would be a dangerous precedent for the future of the presidency.”
Impeachment of Trump by House Dems in December 2019 on phony charges had nothing to do with removing him from office.
It was all about wanting him ahead of November 2020 presidential and congressional elections.
Undemocratic Dems for what they wished for, gaining control of the White House by brazen fraud as well as the House and Senate in days.
In response to the first impeachment attempt, Law Professor Jonathan Turley said the following:
Pelosi “destroyed (the House) case for impeachment.”
Calling her handling of proceedings a “blunder of the first order,” Turley said her delaying strategy “jeopardize(d) not just (Trump’s) trial but the rules governing impeachment.”
On January 7, Turley argued against invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office, saying:
It was “primarily designed for physical disabilities (or death) of a president.”
“As shown by the Goldwater controversy, there are always psychiatrists willing and eager to declare a president insane even from a distance.”
“Politicians often portray their opponents as mentally unbalanced since only an insane person would hold an opposing view some issues.”
“If we were to remove a president on such a basis, it could open the floodgates for such removals in the future.”
“Being obnoxious and narcissistic is not grounds for removal.”
“Indeed, such a standard would leave much of Washington vacant.”
“(W)hat would be achieved? Trump has already pledged an orderly transfer of power…”
“In order to impose this ignoble moment on Trump, the Congress would create precedent for future such removals on ill-defined mental disabilities.”
The Washington Post reported that by “memo” it obtained, Senate Majority Leader McConnell “will not reconvene (the body) for substantive business until Jan. 19” — two days before Trump’s tenure ends.
Pro forma Senate sessions will be held on January 12 and 15 during which conducting official business is prohibited without unanimous consent of its members.
WaPo: “(T)hat (virtually) makes… an impeachment trial” unlikely to begin until a new Congress convenes after inauguration day.
With official business to discuss, impeaching Trump after leaving office would not only be unprecedented, it would distract from confirming cabinet appointees and other important issues.
Citing unnamed McConnell and Schumer aides, WaPo said they haven’t spoken about impeachment proceedings.
According to McConnell’s memo, without a unanimous agreement among Senate members to act on House articles of impeachment:
“Senate trial would…begin after…Trump’s term has expired — either one hour after its expiration on January 20, or twenty-five hours after its expiration on January 21.”
When an impeachment trial of a president occurs, it’s presided over by the Supreme Court chief justice.
It’s unclear if Justice Roberts would agree to be part of trying a former US president?
As things now stand, removing Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment or by impeachment and trial appears highly unlikely.
Justifying either method would be based on falsely accusing him of inciting violence on Capitol Hill last Wednesday — what he had nothing to do with.
Among Global Research’s most popular 2020 articles
This article was first published in May 2020.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose “expert” advice to President Trump has resulted in the complete shutdown of the greatest economic engine in world history, has known since 2005 that chloroquine is an effective inhibitor of coronaviruses.
How did he know this? Because of research done by the National Institutes of Health, of which he is the director. In connection with the SARS outbreak – caused by a coronavirus dubbed SARS- CoV – the NIH researched chloroquine and concluded that it was effective at stopping the SARS coronavirus in its tracks. The COVID-19 bug is likewise a coronavirus, labeled SARS-CoV-2. While not exactly the same virus as SARS-CoV-1, it is genetically related to it, and shares 79% of its genome, as the name SARS-CoV-2 implies. They both use the same host cell receptor, which is what viruses use to gain entry to the cell and infect the victim.
The Virology Journal – the official publication of Dr. Fauci’s National Institutes of Health – published what is now a blockbuster article on August 22, 2005, under the heading – get ready for this – “Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread.” (Emphasis mine throughout.) Write the researchers, “We report…that chloroquine has strong antiviral effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage.”
This means, of course, that Dr. Fauci (pictured at right) has known for 15 years that chloroquine and it’s even milder derivative hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) will not only treat a current case of coronavirus (“therapeutic”) but prevent future cases (“prophylactic”). So HCQ functions as both a cure and a vaccine. In other words, it’s a wonder drug for coronavirus. Said Dr. Fauci’s NIH in 2005, “concentrations of 10 μM completely abolished SARS-CoV infection.” Fauci’s researchers add, “chloroquine can effectively reduce the establishment of infection and spread of SARS-CoV.”
Dr. Didier Raoult, the Anthony Fauci of France, had such spectacular success using HCQ to treat victims of SARS-CoV-2 that he said way back on February 25 that “it’s game over” for coronavirus.
He and a team of researchers reported that the use of HCQ administered with both azithromycin and zinc cured 79 of 80 patients with only “rare and minor” adverse events.
“In conclusion,” these researchers write, “we confirm the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine associated with azithromycin in the treatment of COVID-19 and its potential effectiveness in the early impairment of contagiousness.”
The highly-publicized VA study that purported to show HCQ was ineffective showed nothing of the sort. HCQ wasn’t administered until the patients were virtually on their deathbeds when research indicates it should be prescribed as soon as symptoms are apparent. Plus, HCQ was administered without azithromycin and zinc, which form the cocktail that makes it supremely effective. At-risk individuals need to receive the HCQ cocktail at the first sign of symptoms.
But Governor Andrew Cuomo banned the use of HCQ in the entire state of New York on March 6, the Democrat governors of Nevada and Michigan soon followed suit, and by March 28 the whole country was under incarceration-in-place fatwas.
Nothing happened with regard to the use of HCQ in the U.S. until March 20, when President Trump put his foot down and insisted that the FDA consider authorizing HCQ for off-label use to treat SARS-CoV-2.
On March 23, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko reported that he had treated around 500 coronavirus patients with HCQ and had seen an astonishing 100% success rate. That’s not the “anecdotal” evidence Dr. Fauci sneers at, but actual results with real patients in clinical settings.
“Since last Thursday, my team has treated approximately 350 patients in Kiryas Joel and another 150 patients in other areas of New York with the above regimen. Of this group and the information provided to me by affiliated medical teams, we have had ZERO deaths, ZERO hospitalizations, and ZERO intubations. In addition, I have not heard of any negative side effects other than approximately 10% of patients with temporary nausea and diarrhea.”
Said Dr. Zelenko:
“If you scale this nationally, the economy will rebound much quicker. The country will open again. And let me tell you a very important point. This treatment costs about $20. That’s very important because you can scale that nationally. If every treatment costs $20,000, that’s not so good.
All I’m doing is repurposing old, available drugs which we know their safety profiles, and using them in a unique combination in an outpatient setting.”
The questions are disturbing to a spectacular degree. If Dr. Fauci has known since 2005 of the effectiveness of HCQ, why hasn’t it been administered immediately after people show symptoms, as Dr. Zelenko has done? Maybe then nobody would have died and nobody would have been incarcerated in place except the sick, which is who a quarantine is for in the first place. To paraphrase Jesus, it’s not the symptom-free who need HCQ but the sick. And they need it at the first sign of symptoms.
While the regressive health care establishment wants the HCQ cocktail to only be administered late in the course of the infection, from a medical standpoint, this is stupid. Said one doctor, “As a physician, this baffles me. I can’t think of a single infectious condition — bacterial, fungal, or viral — where the best medical treatment is to delay the use of an anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, or anti-viral until the infection is far advanced.”
So why has Dr. Fauci minimized and dismissed HCQ at every turn instead of pushing this thing from jump street? He didn’t even launch clinical trials of HCQ until April 9, by which time 33,000 people had died.
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January 10th, 2021 by His Excellency Carlo Maria Viganò
First posted on Global Research in October 2020
His Excellency, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, has written yet another open letter to President Donald J. Trump. Read it in its entirety below. It is available in PDF by clicking here. Read it in Italian here.
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DONALD J. TRUMP
Sunday, October 25, 2020
Solemnity of Christ the King
Mr. President,
Allow me to address you at this hour in which the fate of the whole world is being threatened by a global conspiracy against God and humanity. I write to you as an Archbishop, as a Successor of the Apostles, as the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America. I am writing to you in the midst of the silence of both civil and religious authorities. May you accept these words of mine as the “voice of one crying out in the desert” (Jn 1:23).
As I said when I wrote my letter to you in June, this historical moment sees the forces of Evil aligned in a battle without quarter against the forces of Good; forces of Evil that appear powerful and organized as they oppose the children of Light, who are disoriented and disorganized, abandoned by their temporal and spiritual leaders.
Daily we sense the attacks multiplying of those who want to destroy the very basis of society: the natural family, respect for human life, love of country, freedom of education and business. We see heads of nations and religious leaders pandering to this suicide of Western culture and its Christian soul, while the fundamental rights of citizens and believers are denied in the name of a health emergency that is revealing itself more and more fully as instrumental to the establishment of an inhuman faceless tyranny.
A global plan called the Great Reset is underway. Its architect is a global élite that wants to subdue all of humanity, imposing coercive measures with which to drastically limit individual freedoms and those of entire populations. In several nations this plan has already been approved and financed; in others it is still in an early stage. Behind the world leaders who are the accomplices and executors of this infernal project, there are unscrupulous characters who finance the World Economic Forum and Event 201, promoting their agenda.
The purpose of the Great Reset is the imposition of a health dictatorship aiming at the imposition of liberticidal measures, hidden behind tempting promises of ensuring a universal income and cancelling individual debt. The price of these concessions from the International Monetary Fund will be the renunciation of private property and adherence to a program of vaccination against Covid-19 and Covid-21 promoted by Bill Gates with the collaboration of the main pharmaceutical groups. Beyond the enormous economic interests that motivate the promoters of the Great Reset, the imposition of the vaccination will be accompanied by the requirement of a health passport and a digital ID, with the consequent contact tracing of the population of the entire world. Those who do not accept these measures will be confined in detention camps or placed under house arrest, and all their assets will be confiscated.
Mr. President, I imagine that you are already aware that in some countries the Great Reset will be activated between the end of this year and the first trimester of 2021. For this purpose, further lockdowns are planned, which will be officially justified by a supposed second and third wave of the pandemic. You are well aware of the means that have been deployed to sow panic and legitimize draconian limitations on individual liberties, artfully provoking a world-wide economic crisis. In the intentions of its architects, this crisis will serve to make the recourse of nations to the Great Reset irreversible, thereby giving the final blow to a world whose existence and very memory they want to completely cancel. But this world, Mr. President, includes people, affections, institutions, faith, culture, traditions, and ideals: people and values that do not act like automatons, who do not obey like machines, because they are endowed with a soul and a heart, because they are tied together by a spiritual bond that draws its strength from above, from that God that our adversaries want to challenge, just as Lucifer did at the beginning of time with his “non serviam.”
Many people – as we well know – are annoyed by this reference to the clash between Good and Evil and the use of “apocalyptic” overtones, which according to them exasperates spirits and sharpens divisions. It is not surprising that the enemy is angered at being discovered just when he believes he has reached the citadel he seeks to conquer undisturbed. What is surprising, however, is that there is no one to sound the alarm. The reaction of the deep state to those who denounce its plan is broken and incoherent, but understandable. Just when the complicity of the mainstream media had succeeded in making the transition to the New World Order almost painless and unnoticed, all sorts of deceptions, scandals and crimes are coming to light.
Until a few months ago, it was easy to smear as “conspiracy theorists” those who denounced these terrible plans, which we now see being carried out down to the smallest detail. No one, up until last February, would ever have thought that, in all of our cities, citizens would be arrested simply for wanting to walk down the street, to breathe, to want to keep their business open, to want to go to church on Sunday. Yet now it is happening all over the world, even in picture-postcard Italy that many Americans consider to be a small enchanted country, with its ancient monuments, its churches, its charming cities, its characteristic villages. And while the politicians are barricaded inside their palaces promulgating decrees like Persian satraps, businesses are failing, shops are closing, and people are prevented from living, traveling, working, and praying. The disastrous psychological consequences of this operation are already being seen, beginning with the suicides of desperate entrepreneurs and of our children, segregated from friends and classmates, told to follow their classes while sitting at home alone in front of a computer.
In Sacred Scripture, Saint Paul speaks to us of “the one who opposes” the manifestation of the mystery of iniquity, the kathèkon (2 Thess 2:6-7). In the religious sphere, this obstacle to evil is the Church, and in particular the papacy; in the political sphere, it is those who impede the establishment of the New World Order.
As is now clear, the one who occupies the Chair of Peter has betrayed his role from the very beginning in order to defend and promote the globalist ideology, supporting the agenda of the deep church, who chose him from its ranks.
Mr. President, you have clearly stated that you want to defend the nation – One Nation under God, fundamental liberties, and non-negotiable values that are denied and fought against today. It is you, dear President, who are “the one who opposes” the deep state, the final assault of the children of darkness.
For this reason, it is necessary that all people of good will be persuaded of the epochal importance of the imminent election: not so much for the sake of this or that political program, but because of the general inspiration of your action that best embodies – in this particular historical context – that world, our world, which they want to cancel by means of the lockdown. Your adversary is also our adversary: it is the Enemy of the human race, He who is “a murderer from the beginning” (Jn 8:44).
Around you are gathered with faith and courage those who consider you the final garrison against the world dictatorship. The alternative is to vote for a person who is manipulated by the deep state, gravely compromised by scandals and corruption, who will do to the United States what Jorge Mario Bergoglio is doing to the Church, Prime Minister Conte to Italy, President Macron to France, Prime Minster Sanchez to Spain, and so on. The blackmailable nature of Joe Biden – just like that of the prelates of the Vatican’s “magic circle” – will expose him to be used unscrupulously, allowing illegitimate powers to interfere in both domestic politics as well as international balances. It is obvious that those who manipulate him already have someone worse than him ready, with whom they will replace him as soon as the opportunity arises.
And yet, in the midst of this bleak picture, this apparently unstoppable advance of the “Invisible Enemy,” an element of hope emerges. The adversary does not know how to love, and it does not understand that it is not enough to assure a universal income or to cancel mortgages in order to subjugate the masses and convince them to be branded like cattle. This people, which for too long has endured the abuses of a hateful and tyrannical power, is rediscovering that it has a soul; it is understanding that it is not willing to exchange its freedom for the homogenization and cancellation of its identity; it is beginning to understand the value of familial and social ties, of the bonds of faith and culture that unite honest people. This Great Reset is destined to fail because those who planned it do not understand that there are still people ready to take to the streets to defend their rights, to protect their loved ones, to give a future to their children and grandchildren. The leveling inhumanity of the globalist project will shatter miserably in the face of the firm and courageous opposition of the children of Light. The enemy has Satan on its side, He who only knows how to hate. But on our side, we have the Lord Almighty, the God of armies arrayed for battle, and the Most Holy Virgin, who will crush the head of the ancient Serpent. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).
Mr. President, you are well aware that, in this crucial hour, the United States of America is considered the defending wall against which the war declared by the advocates of globalism has been unleashed. Place your trust in the Lord, strengthened by the words of the Apostle Paul: “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). To be an instrument of Divine Providence is a great responsibility, for which you will certainly receive all the graces of state that you need, since they are being fervently implored for you by the many people who support you with their prayers.
With this heavenly hope and the assurance of my prayer for you, for the First Lady, and for your collaborators, with all my heart I send you my blessing.
God bless the United States of America!
+ Carlo Maria Viganò
Tit. Archbishop of Ulpiana
Former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America
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Big Tech’s moves to muscle President Donald Trump off social media have been heralded by some as victory. But a corporate-run state with politicians serving as mere figureheads amounts to the very fascism they claim to oppose.
The smug, palpable air of ‘mission accomplished’ emanating from Facebook, Twitter and Google in the weeks after the media called November’s election for Democrat Joe Biden has been hard to ignore. Thanks to an iron grip on the political narrative and the heavy-handed suppression of any influential dissenting voices, these insanely wealthy companies and their partners in the media establishment have managed to successfully upend what was left of the US’ democratic process.
In short, they have reason to celebrate, having pulled off the first successful national-level coup-by-media in US history. And better yet — for them at least — having helped the ‘right’ guy win, they won’t have to answer to any bogus charges of Russian collusion this time around. Indeed, no less than the Department of Homeland Security came forward to declare the vote the most secure in US history — a baffling claim at best, given the same officials have spent months insisting foreign infiltration supposedly had democracy hanging by a thread.
The epic pearl-clutching that followed Wednesday’s march on the Capitol is almost guaranteed to result in further restrictions on online speech — and as many observers noted, that’s just how Big Tech and Big Brother want it. No explanations have been forthcoming as to why the Capitol was largely unguarded during the protests, even though Trump had for weeks been calling on his followers to stage “wild” demonstrations on that day. Nor was it clear why Mayor Muriel Bowser waited so long before sending in police and the military to rein in the chaos.
The stage seemed to have been deliberately set for disaster, just the sort of spectacle a clever Big Business-Big Tech axis needs to terrify the masses into believing a full-on insurrection is afoot. The only real surprise in Wednesday’s events is that more people weren’t killed — but that’s where the media came in, wielding luridly detailed descriptions and photographing the most bizarrely-attired figures in the group.
By distracting the public, attributing the violence that claimed five lives to the ubiquitous Radicalized Domestic Extremists™ and banning an ever-growing number of discussion topics, Facebook, Twitter, and Google can dodge a total repeal of Section 230 liability protections and live to blanket the nation in propaganda another day. Never mind the absence of visible ‘white supremacists,’ Nazis, and other undesirables supposedly leading the pro-Trump contingent — it’s always possible to Photoshop in a Nazi insignia or 12 in post.
Ultimately, the narrative diverges from reality just enough to make its point, fingering social media as the culprit, and duping the average American into supporting further incursions on their First Amendment freedoms. The moral of the story becomes “Stop thinking, before someone gets hurt.”
And should the relationship sour, and politicians want their power back? Big Tech can easily scuttle any legislative attempts to break up its monopoly merely by threatening to expose the secrets of the dozens of government agencies that have their data stored in the cloud. Companies like Facebook and Twitter, Amazon and Google have what’s left of American ‘democracy’ by the proverbial balls, and should some crusading politician attempt to disrupt their cozy relationship, they’d almost certainly live to regret it.
It would take just one inconvenient ‘leak’ to turn the public against any Luddite savior attempting to pry Big Tech’s boot off American necks. These firms’ control of the media is so airtight that a manufactured ‘scandal’ could be cooked up and launched into cyberspace in a matter of hours. Such retaliation would serve the dual purpose of destroying the political crusader’s career and reminding other would-be do-gooders not to do anything foolish — like fighting to defend one’s own country against the megacorporations holding it hostage.
By blocking Trump from even posting on Twitter and Facebook and live-streaming platform Twitch — Big Tech has made it clear they’re no longer satisfied with a mere monopoly over one of the few profitable industries left in the US. They won’t stop accumulating power until they run politics, from the presidency to the smallest local election. With Wednesday’s riots, the carefully-choreographed dance between tech execs and the politicians who do their bidding has been given the green light to ascend to the next level.
Deplatforming Trump is only the beginning of a megalomaniacal crusade against all those who would question a government by the algorithms, of the algorithms, and for the algorithms.
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Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
The UK government has launched its public consultation on the deregulation of gene editing in England. To kick things off, somewhat predictably Environment Secretary George Eustice recently spun a staunch pro-industry line at the Oxford Farming Conference by stating:
“Gene editing has the ability to harness the genetic resources that Mother Nature has provided in order to tackle the challenges of our age. This includes breeding crops that perform better, reducing costs to farmers and impacts on the environment and helping us all adapt to the challenges of climate change.”
In the wake of Brexit, he attacked the EU’s stance on genetic engineering in agriculture by saying:
“Its potential was blocked by a European Court of Justice ruling in 2018, which is flawed and stifling to scientific progress. Now that we have left the EU, we are free to make coherent policy decisions based on science and evidence. That begins with this consultation.”
Eustice’s statements form part of a long-term pro-genetic engineering-deregulation propaganda campaign. It follows on from Boris Johnson’s first speech to parliament as prime minister in 2019 in which he proclaimed:
“Let’s start now to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules and let’s develop the blight-resistant crops that will feed the world.”
The type of ‘liberation’ Johnson advocates forms part of the usual neoliberal evangelism which this time revolves around the adoption of unassessed genetically engineered crops and food, while overseeing the gutting of food safety and environmental standards, especially in light of a potential post-Brexit trade deal with the US.
It is no secret that various Conservative-led administrations have wanted to break free from the EU regulatory framework on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for some time. In 2014, Genewatch exposed collusion between the government and global agribusiness giants to force GMOs into Britain above the heads of a highly sceptical public.
In response to Eustice’s comments, GMWatch stated on its website that deregulation would result in no or few safety checks and probably no labelling for gene-edited products. This is despite dozens of top scientists having warned that they could be dangerous for human health and the environment in a 2017 Statement on New Genetic Modification Techniques.
Commenting on the government’s recent press release sent out to journalists to publicise the consultation process, the Beyond GM campaign group said:
“… the mendacious propaganda material on the benefits of genome editing… which was sent to journalists throughout the country… will be widely taken up as fact, preventing any intelligent public debate during the consultation period.”
The press release is in GMWatch’s view “a pack of lies from beginning to end” based on unsubstantiated ‘jam tomorrow’ claims that gene editing has the potential to protect the nation’s environment, pollinators and wildlife. These claims ignore the reality that the first gene-edited crop to be commercialised (Cibus’s SU canola) is gene edited to survive being sprayed with toxic herbicides. GMWatch argues that there is no gene-edited crop available anywhere in the world that offers environmental benefits.
It is telling that all the claimed advantages of gene-edited crops of the future are already available in the form of agroecological farming methods and high-performing conventionally bred crops. Agroecology offers system-wide solutions that tackle the now well-documented system-wide health, nutrition, social and environmental problems inherent in the model of industrial agriculture supported by corporations behind the genetic engineering project.
However, the UK government shows no interest in these solutions.
GMWatch notes that the government press release claims that gene editing is not genetic modification. The industry has put much effort into spinning this next generation of genetically engineered crops in this way. It wants at all costs to avoid the bad press and negative public perception that has surrounded the first generation of transgenic GMOs by avoiding the GMO tag.
However, gene editing most certainly falls within the definitions of GMOs from technical, scientific and legal (in the EU) standpoints. In fact, the EU and existing UK definition of a GMO does not depend on whether it contains foreign DNA. EU law defines a GMO as an organism in which “the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination”. Regardless of what the government says, gene-edited organisms fall under this definition.
Moreover, the government is wrong to claim that gene-edited organisms do not contain foreign DNA. This can happen intentionally (in the case of certain types of gene-edited organism) and unintentionally, as a result of the inherent inaccuracy and imprecision of gene-editing procedures. To support this claim, a compilation of peer reviewed evidence has been posted on the GMWatch website in the article ‘Science supports need to subject gene-edited plants to strict safety assessments’.
As for the government’s claim that gene-edited organisms only contain “changes that could be made more slowly using traditional breeding methods”, GMWatch says:
“We look forward to their proof that the unintended outcomes of gene editing could happen in traditional breeding. They include large deletions, insertions and rearrangements of DNA, as well as unintended incorporation of foreign DNA and entire genes.”
Long-time campaigner Jim McNulty of the Genetic Engineering Network is scathing in his assessment of how the UK government is currently acting. He says:
“When we look at this administration, filled to the roof with fraud, corruption and cronyism, we now have Boris Johnson trying to make or break the rules on new gene-editing techniques.”
He adds that the Brexiteers in government wasted no time in setting their pro-GMO agenda:
“Within a week of leaving the EU, the UK moved quickly to challenge and compete with our former European partners. The US is refusing to regulate the new genetic engineering techniques, just like they did with the first wave of transgenic GMOs. We in Europe, in the mid-90s, were faced with untested, unstable and unregulated GMOs in soy and maize going into two thirds of EU food products.”
It was a mammoth task to bring politicians, supermarkets and all government bodies on board to regulate the original wave of GMOs.
McNulty explains:
“We succeeded because in the UK, Germany and France campaigners and activists demanded action. The media, retailers and politicians buckled under the massive pressure of public opinion that we created to bring that about.”
The US also felt the pressure:
“Because the EU and its markets were the prize and there was so much anti-GM sentiment, GMOs were driven out and EU lawmakers have never changed their position. Science and public opinion won.”
McNulty argues that we now see treachery in our midst: a former member state has seen fit to bury 25 years of evolving laws and regulations founded on a science-based approach and the precautionary principle.
The consultation will close on Wednesday, 17 March at 23:59 and can be accessed via this link.
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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.
“The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without any need for an official ban” (George Orwell(1))
If our media were trying to cover world events each day honestly, then the headlines would repeatedly say things like:
“US and Britain commit more war crimes in the Middle East”
“Thousands persecuted by tyrants supported by US and Britain”
This does not happen because our current media are not trying to give us an honest explanation of what is really happening in the world. This does not mean that the media is necessarily telling lies (although it frequently does). It is mostly presenting distorted versions of events. This is usually known as the Propaganda Model of the media, which is analysed at length in a famous book called Manufacturing Consent, by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, first published in 1988.
The book explains that the beliefs of journalists, the ownership of the media by governments or big corporations, advertising, and the sources of information for news stories, all create a system which filters out topics and opinions that are considered ‘undesirable’.(2) That is, topics or opinions that challenge powerful interests, such as governments or big corporations. In particular, the media are uncritical of British and US war crimes, and they are not sufficiently critical of the profit-driven economic system. The main reasons for this are discussed below. These are sometimes called the five filters.
1) Conflicts of Interest: Ownership by Corporations and Governments
The media in the US and Britain is mostly controlled by a small number of big corporations,(3) with the exception of the BBC, which is controlled by the government. As with all corporations, the power rests with a few people at the top. Journalists are just employees who can be hired and fired. Putting forward radical or controversial views is likely to annoy people in power. Corporations do not want journalists who are troublemakers or whistleblowers. Presenters and journalists quickly realise that media owners will not tolerate certain types of critical stories. Insiders in the US media have admitted that they back away from controversial stories that might offend their audience. Those who are very critical of big business and government foreign policy will not make it to the anchor position on mainstream news programs and will find it difficult to get a job with the major newspapers.(4) They may even be fired. A famous example of this was when the US MSNBC presenter Phil Donahue was critical of the Iraq war in 2003 and was quickly fired. MSNBC is owned by General Electric, who are one of the US’s biggest weapons companies. They did not want anti-war voices on the channel.(5)
2) Advertising – Do Not Bite The Hand That Feeds You
The bulk of the funding for most newspapers and television channels comes from advertising by major corporations. A number of these, such as BP and Morgan Stanley, have stated that they will not advertise with publications that they consider ‘objectionable’,(6) which really means any that question their right to make unlimited profits, or that question the way they do business. Companies that sell weapons do not want stories that show the horror of war; tobacco companies do not want stories about children getting addicted to cigarettes in Malawi. They want the media to focus on stories that make their readers and viewers receptive to advertising. Favorable news stories, known in the industry as puff pieces, can be bought by advertisers. In many local papers, the editorial mostly fills the space between advertisements. When discussing the qualities required of journalists, one senior newspaper executive stated:
“what you want are people who can execute your strategy…to create editorial to support maximizing revenues from display advertising”.(7)
There is a conflict of interest if the primary goal of the media, as with other businesses, is to make profits, and the main source of revenue is the advertising. Under these circumstances, the media will not present the most critical stories. Ultimately, ratings and corporate profit are more important than honest news.
3) Sourcing – Do Not Bite The Hand That Feeds You (again)
Journalism has always relied on official sources of information, such as government spokespeople, and corporate press releases. In fact, this is what makes up the majority of news today. The media cannot risk being ‘shut out’ by either the government or corporations, so they rarely do anything to seriously upset them. Many journalists now just write what those with power want them to write. One British journalist even said that politics and journalism are no longer separate. Most mainstream journalists just want to be spoon-fed information by their sources.(8) Stories often turn out to be word-for-word copies of press releases from governments or corporations. Some video footage is actually just another PR tool, provided by corporations so TV stations can fill their news programs cheaply.(9) It is estimated that as much as 80% of mainstream US news comes from government, corporate or public relations sources.(10) Many ‘experts’ who appear on news programs are supplied by big business or the government, so they will tend to present the establishment view of their subject.
4) Flak
There is a related issue that powerful people or organisations can give a newspaper a hard time if they do not like what is written. This is known as ‘flak’. It can be phone calls or letters, or, particularly in Britain, the threat of legal action, which can be enough to deter the media from pursuing a story. When the BBC ran a story that was critical of the reasons given for the Iraq war (this was known as the ‘dodgy dossier’), the government gave them flak and senior BBC people lost their jobs.(11) The CBS presenter Dan Rather has admitted that they dropped a story about George Bush’s national service being in a ‘safe’ unit, due to flak from the government.(12) Media criticism can therefore be kept within certain boundaries.
5) Ideology
The final filter is ideology – what do journalists believe. For many years between 1945 and 1989, the dominant ideology was anti-communism. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, this has been replaced by two dominant ideologies – anti-terrorism and capitalism.(13) This means that journalists are reluctant to criticise anything that the government claims is about anti-terrorism, whether it be repressive laws at home, or wars abroad. Journalists have also come to believe that there is no alternative to the existing economic or financial system, despite the evidence showing clearly since the 2008 financial crisis that the existing system is highly unstable and creates poor outcomes for many people.
The Five Filters Lead to Censorship and Self-Censorship
The former commissioner of the US regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Nicholas Johnson, said that there are four stages that journalists typically go through in their career:
“In the early stage, you’re a young crusader and you write an exposé story about the powers that be, and you bring it to your editor and the editor says: “No, kill it. We can’t touch that. Too hot.”
Stage two: You get an idea for the story, but you don’t write it and you check with the editor first and he says: “No, won’t fly. No, I think the old man won’t like it. Don’t do that, he has a lot of friends in there and that might get messy.
Stage three: You get an idea for the story and you yourself dismiss it as silly.
Stage four: You no longer get the idea for that kind of an exposé story.”(14)
The writer, Michael Parenti, suggested that there is also a stage five:
“You then appear on panels, with media critics like me, and you get very angry and indignant when we say that there are biases in the media and you’re not as free and independent as you think.”(15)
The filtering system does not completely eliminate all critical views on all subjects. There are a handful of mainstream journalists who sometimes manage some limited criticism of the economic system, but their presence actually leads readers and viewers to incorrectly assume that the media is better than it really is. Occasionally, an insider will criticise the media itself, but they tend to suggest that the mainstream media is reasonable, by focussing on the following narrow argument:
As the sales figures for most newspapers decline, the budget for serious journalism decreases. Fewer journalists racing to meet tight deadlines, without the time or resources to investigate properly, means that it is simply easier for journalists to regurgitate information that has been supplied to them in the form of press releases from governments, corporations and PR companies.(16)
This argument is true, but the mainstream media has always presented a highly distorted version of events, even when they were well-funded and well-staffed. There is a small number of former mainstream media journalists who are more critical and now write independently. In Britain this includes John Pilger,(17) Matt Kennard,(18) Nafeez Ahmed(19) and Jonathan Cook.(20) They have all described various forms of censorship during their mainstream careers.
Ideology is extremely powerful
One of the authors of Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky, once pointed out in a famous interview(21) with BBC presenter Andrew Marr that this filtering system does not require official censorship, or even deliberate self-censorship by journalists. The recruitment and promotion policies of media organisations guarantee that only people with the ‘correct’ opinions make it to the highest levels. This even applies on some university journalism courses. The investigative journalist, Matt Kennard, has explained how he had a bad reputation at Columbia Journalism School because he dared to ask critical questions of one of America’s worst war criminals, Henry Kissinger.(22)
The idea that journalists and politicians share similar views is clear from the revolving door, where senior people in government go to work at newspapers, and vice versa. There is a long history of this in both Britain and the US.(23) In Britain, recent examples would be the former Chancellor, George Osbourne, becoming the editor of the Evening Standard, and the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, having previously edited The Spectator. (24)
Chomsky has also pointed out that, on the whole, academics do not have the first four filters limiting their work, yet the output of mainstream academics is almost as poor as that of the media on topics such as economics, finance, politics, international relations, and terrorism studies, with critical academics being a small minority. Academic bias is mostly caused by ideology. For this reason, Chomsky has suggested that the most important of the media filters is ideology.(25)
Groupthink and The Memory Hole
In later posts we will look at psychological traits that contribute to the issues discussed throughout these posts. One of those traits is worth mentioning here. It is groupthink. Most people in the media are surrounded by other people repeating the mainstream view, and they rarely get to hear alternative views. This tends to make their views even more extreme. It was recognised long ago that “a lie repeated often enough becomes the accepted truth”.(26) Journalists hear the distortions most often and therefore end up believing many of them. Once journalists have written these things then they have a vested interest in defending their previous points of view. It becomes more and more difficult for them to say ‘much of what I have written has been wrong’. In order to justify their support for wars, they repeat the statements of politicians about humanitarian intentions, or weapons of mass destruction, or the threat of terrorism, believing that this constitutes evidence of ‘good intentions’ by those politicians, when in fact it is mostly propaganda. There is no honest way to justify ‘bombing whole countries back to the stone age,’(27) as the assaults on Iraq and Libya have been described, yet that is what they try to do.
The media also have what is described as ‘the memory hole.’ This is a reference to the George Orwell novel ‘1984’. The Memory Hole was “a slot into which government officials deposit politically inconvenient documents for destruction”.(28) These days it is used to refer to situations where journalists seem to forget many of the criminal or unethical acts that their government has carried out. There have been plenty of government investigations detailing the criminal activities of US agencies like the CIA,(29) but you would not get that impression from reading current analysis of government activities. Documentation regarding Britain’s past atrocities is also readily available but conveniently forgotten.
It’s Even Worse Than You Think
It was revealed by the Telegraph newspaper that the British Security Agency, MI5, had vetted BBC appointments for many years.(30) The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and media insiders(31) have admitted that the CIA employed many agents in senior positions in most important US news organisations. The media claim that these links no longer exist, but journalists continue to come forward occasionally to explain that they do exist, and that intelligence agencies still plant stories in the press.(32) A combination of bribes, such as access to important sources, the threat of being fired, and the five filters discussed above, is enough to keep most journalists in line.
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Rod Driver is a part-time academic who is particularly interested in de-bunking modern-day US and British propaganda. This is the eleventh in a series entitled Elephants In The Room, which attempts to provide a beginners guide to understanding what’s really going on in relation to war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media.
Notes
1) George Orwell, The Freedom Of The Press, 1945
2) Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, 1988
4) Edwards and Cromwell, Guardians Of Power, 2006, p.89
5) Democracy Now, ‘Phil Donahue on His 2003 Firing From MSNBC, When Liberal Network Couldn’t Tolerate Antiwar Voices’, 21 Mar 2013, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozxzNjRqCiE
In the wake of the Wednesday January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill Event, we must reflect on what a Joe Biden Administration will look like.
Joe Biden was not duly elected, he was selected. He is a groomed and “reliable” politician. He is a political instrument of the global capitalist establishment.
Biden is a firm supporter of the Corona lockdown. His statements concerning a “Dark Winter” in 2021 confirm that he not only endorses the adoption of staunch Covid-19 lockdown policies, his administration will pursue and adopt the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” as an integral part of US foreign policy, to be implemented or more correctly “imposed” Worldwide.
In turn, the Biden-Harris administration will attempt to override all forms of popular resistance to the corona virus lockdown.
We are at the crossroads of one of the most serious crises in World history. We are living history, yet our understanding of the sequence of events since January 2020 has been blurred.
What is unfolding is a new and destructive phase of US imperialism. It’s a totalitarian project of economic and social engineering, which ultimately destroys people’s lives Worldwide.
This “novel” neoliberal agenda using the corona lockdown as an instrument of social oppression has been endorsed by the leadership of the Democratic Party.
The Biden White House will be used to instate what David Rockefeller called “Global Governance”, which is tantamount to a Worldwide “democratic dictatorship”.
It should be noted that the protest movement in the US, against the lockdown is weak. In fact there is no coherent grassroots national protest movement. Why? Because “progressive forces” including leftist intellectuals, NGO leaders, trade union and labor leaders, most of which are aligned with the Democratic Party have from the outset been supportive of the lockdown. And they are also supportive of Joe Biden.
In a bitter irony, antiwar activists as well as the critics of neoliberalism have endorsed Joe Biden, who is now being accused by Trump supporters of being a “socialist”.
The following text is an excerpt from the concluding chapter of my E-Book: entitled.
“Elected President” Joe Biden is a groomed politician, a trusted proxy, serving the interests of the financial establishment.
Let’s not forget that Joe Biden was a firm supporter of the Invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein “had weapons of mass destruction”. “The American People were deceived into this war”, said Senator Dick Durbin. Do not let yourself be deceived again by Joe Biden.
.
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Evolving acronyms. 9/11, GWOT, WMD and now COVID: Biden was rewarded for having supported the invasion of Iraq.
Fox News describes him as a “socialist” who threatens capitalism: “Joe Biden’s disturbing connection to the socialist ‘Great Reset’ movement”. While this is absolute nonsense, many “progressives” and anti-war activists have endorsed Joe Biden without analyzing the broader consequences of a Biden presidency.
The Great Reset is socially divisive, it’s racist. It is a diabolical project of Global Capitalism. It constitutes a threat to the large majority of Americans workers as well as to small and medium sized enterprises. A Biden-Harris administration actively involved in carrying out the “Great Reset” is a threat to humanity.
With regard to Covid, Biden is firmly committed to the “Second Wave”, i.e. maintaining the partial closing down of both the US economy and the global economy as a means to “combating the killer virus”.
Joe Biden will push for the adoption of the WEF’s “Great Reset” both nationally and internationally, with devastating economic and social consequences. The 2021 World Economic Forum (WEF) scheduled for Summer 2021 will focus on the implementation of the “Great Reset”.
A Joe Biden administration would actively pursue Big Money’s totalitarian blueprint: The Great Reset.
Unless there is significant protest and organized resistance, nationally and internationally, the Great Reset will be embedded in both domestic and US foreign policy agendas of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration.
It’s what you call Imperialism with a “Human Face”.
Moreover, many so-called “progressive voices” have endorsed Joe Biden.
Where is the Protest Movement against this Unelected Corona “public-private partnership”?
The same philanthropic foundations (Rockefeller, Ford, Soros, et al) which are the unspoken architects of the “Great Reset” and “Global Governance” are also involved in (generously) financing Climate Change activism, the Extinction Rebellion, the World Social Forum, Black Lives Matters, LGBT, et al.
It’s what you call “manufactured dissent” (far more insidious than Herman-Chomsky’s “manufactured consent”).
The objective of the financial elites “has been to fragment the people’s movement into a vast “do it yourself” mosaic. Activism tends to be piecemeal. There is no integrated anti-globalization anti-war movement.” (Michel Chossudovsky, Manufacturing Dissent, Global Research, 2010)
In the words, McGeorge Bundy, president of the Ford Foundation (1966-1979):
“Everything the [Ford] Foundation did could be regarded as “making the World safe for capitalism”, reducing social tensions by helping to comfort the afflicted, provide safety valves for the angry, and improve the functioning of government
The Protest movement against this “Global Coup d’état” requires a process of Worldwide mobilization:
.”There can be no meaningful mass movement when dissent is generously funded by those same corporate interests [WEF, Gates, Ford, et al] which are the target of the protest movement”.
The Road Ahead
More than 7 billion people Worldwide are directly or indirectly affected by the corona crisis.
What is required is the development of a broad based grassroots network which confronts both the architects of this crisis as well as the national and regional governments (States, provinces) involved in carrying out the lockdown and closure of economic activity as a means to combating “V the Virus”. The legitimacy of politicians and their powerful corporate sponsors must be questioned, including the police state measures adopted to enforce the various policies. (Face masks, social distancing, public gatherings, etc. )
This network would be established (nationally and internationally) at all levels of society, in towns and villages, work places, parishes. Trade unions, farmers organizations, professional associations, business associations, student unions, veterans associations, church groups would be called upon to integrate this movement.
The first task would be to disable the fear campaign and media disinformation as well put an end to Big Pharma’s Covid vaccination programme.
The corporate media would be directly challenged, without specifically targeting mainstream journalists, many of whom have been instructed to abide by the official narrative. This endeavour would require a parallel process at the grassroots level, of sensitizing and educating fellow citizens on the nature of virus, the PCR test, the impacts of the lockdown, the face mask and social distancing.
“Spreading the word” through social media and independent online media outlets will be undertaken bearing in mind that Google as well as Facebook are instruments of censorship.
The creation of such a movement, which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of the financial elites as well as the structures of political authority at the national level, is no easy task. It will require a degree of solidarity, unity and commitment unparalleled in World history.
It will also require breaking down political and ideological barriers within society (i.e. between political parties) and acting with a single voice. We must also understand that the “corona project” is an integral part of the U.S. imperial agenda. It has geopolitical and strategic implications. It will also require eventually unseating the architects of this diabolical “pandemic” and indicting them for crimes against humanity.
(Excerpts from Chapter IX).
The link to Michel Chossudovsky’s recently published E-Book consisting of nine chapters:
Em 1930, antes de completar 36 anos, faleceu José Carlos Mariátegui. Sua tão breve vida não o impediu de legar à história uma obra ampla, que quase um século depois mantém sua atualidade.
Considerado um dos mais influentes marxistas da América, esse intelectual-militante –tipógrafo, jornalista, editor, historiador, filósofo – foi um pioneiro em interpretar a questão nacional latino-americana segundo os princípios do marxismo.
Comunista dialético e de práxis
Autodidata erudito, o pensador peruano ainda bem jovem se declara um comunista “convicto e confesso”. Em seus escritos teóricos, pode-se apreciar o exame minucioso dos conflitos e contradições socioculturais do período entreguerras – tanto relativos a sua realidade periférica andina e latino-americana, como acerca de questões do centro do mundo capitalista, que ele conheceu de perto.
Em sua polêmica filosófica “Defesa do marxismo” [1], afirma que suas investigações histórico-científicas e filosóficas se guiam pela metodologia dialética: o marxismo “não é um itinerário, mas uma bússola”; “pensar corretamente é, em grande medida, uma questão de direção”.
Por outro ângulo, enquanto homem político revolucionário, Mariátegui valorizou o princípio ético da práxis como sendo o núcleo do pensamento começado por Marx e Engels. Entende que a teoria só se verifica na prática, e nela se corrige; que ao existir na realidade, a teoria transforma o mundo real, sendo por sua vez transformada por este novo real.
Segundo manifesta em suas reflexões críticas à “passividade” da Segunda Internacional (parlamentarista, pacifista), Mariátegui não escreve porque meramente aprecia ou deseja escrever, mas porque precisa dizer: porque se sentia eticamente compelido a comunicar o que analisara, o que descobrira. Para ele, as “certezas positivistas” (a pretensão cientificista por uma verdade exata e única) do socialismo da Segunda Internacional são uma “fossilização” acadêmica do marxismo [2].
Trata-se de uma postura existencial combativa (ativa, de luta), tão oposta ao conformismo de certo marxismo academicista, regular, “profissional” – com sua crítica acomodada pelo hábito da boa posição intermuros, com sua moral de pena limpa que, ao meramente escrever sobre realidades que não vivencia, limita sua própria crítica, e mais: isenta-se da autocrítica com que poderia vislumbrar seu próprio elitismo (na prática social concreta do cotidiano).
Eis a contraditória corrupção do marxismo asséptico a que Mariátegui tanto criticou: um “marxismo” sujeitado aos moldes capitalistas da competição (intelectual, midiática). Um “marxismo” autorizado pelo sistema que continua “validando” os discursos acerca do que “é” ou “não é” verdade. E isto, sobretudo em certos meios vira-latas periféricos (editoriais, acadêmicos), que continuam copiando e idolatrando o que vem de fora. Veja-se por exemplo a sintomática proliferação – até no campo das “esquerdas” (!) – de publicações filiais de meios estrangeiros (revistas e portais que sequer ousam modificar o nome de sua matriz estrangeira).
Mariátegui na história
Desbravador de um marxismo atento às peculiaridades da realidade americana colonizada, Mariátegui exerce até hoje grande influência sobre variados movimentos sociais: de agrupamentos de resistência camponesa e indígena, a grupos de distintas tendências socialistas.
Aliás, por incrível que pareça, ele é aclamado inclusive por “liberais”: como instituições oficiais, políticas e culturais peruanas, que se vangloriam de seu “grande nome das letras nacionais” em arrastados textos “históricos” que sequer mencionam sua posição político-filosófica marxista.
A quase um século de seu decesso, a herança mariateguiana pode ser observada hoje pelo mundo, e se expande – como se vê na crescente pesquisa sobre sua obra que tem se desenvolvido no Brasil, América Latina e até mesmo no centro capitalista – em espaços normalmente dominados pela anglofonia.
Seu pensamento se faz presente nos debates políticos e táticas de ocupação comunitária (de latifúndios) do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Terra do Brasil (MST); ou na ideologia guerrilheira autóctone do Exército Zapatista de Libertação Nacional (EZLN); ou mesmo na tática ofensiva de grupos armados, como os marxistas-leninistas das Forças Armadas Revolucionárias da Colômbia–Exército do Povo (FARC) – guerrilha de meio século hoje rachada entre um movimento político legal e uma parcela que dá continuidade à “crítica das armas”.
Além desses exemplos, como bem observou a professora Zilda Iokoi, é simbólico o caso do “Partido Comunista de Perú por el Sendero Luminoso de José Carlos Mariátegui” (PCP – Sendero Luminoso), histórica guerrilha camponesa de tendência maoista que, apesar de só parcialmente se apoiar no pensamento do autor (a quem homenageia), procurou articular a “estrutura do processo da Revolução Cultural” chinesa com os “princípios da mística andina” [3].
Formação política e contexto histórico
Nascido em Moquegua (Peru), em 1894, Mariátegui se muda cedo para a capital. Sua mocidade se dá em um momento histórico conturbado. Por um lado, com a Primeira Guerra Mundial, as potências capitalistas tinha levado a humanidade a conhecer uma de suas maiores carnificinas. De outro, na Eurásia, a Revolução Bolchevique propunha na prática uma alternativa às misérias gritantes do capitalismo.
Ele inicia a carreira profissional como tipógrafo aprendiz, no diário “La Prensa”, ainda adolescente. No prelúdio da Primeira Guerra, se lança na escrita, elaborando críticas literárias eversos. Pouco depois já publicaria seus primeiros artigos políticos.
Com a atividade jornalística, se aproxima do movimento operário, que se gestava desde o fim do século XIX – de linha anarquista bakuninista, migrado à América por militantes europeus.
Destacando-se como jornalista, Mariátegui em 1916 se torna cronista regular do jornal “El Tiempo”, dedicando-se ao embate político, denunciando a “democracia mestiça” de fachada – a demagógica fonte de “divertimento” que tinha a função de desviar a atenção do povo quanto ao fato de que a burguesia da costa peruana aliada aos grandes proprietários rurais tornavam o país cada vez mais um “setor colonial” do imperialismo estadunidense.
Esta foi uma época de grande alta nos preços dos alimentos. Em consequência do mal-estar popular, a movimentação operária se fortalece. Os escritos de Mariátegui – já de tendência socialista, embora ainda não “marxista” –, apoiam as greves, criticando a classe dirigente limenha.
Em 1918, em Córdoba (Argentina) começa um intenso movimento pela Reforma Universitária, manifestações que abrangeriam todo o continente. Entusiasmado, o pensador andino afirma ser este o “nascimento da nova geração latino-americana” [4].
Outro marco mariateguiano na política peruana foi a fundação revista “Nuestra Época” (1918), publicação que não traçava um “programa socialista”, mas aparecia como um esforço ideológico nesta direção. Mariátegui dava então início a suas atividades como editor, o que perfaria importante parcela de sua atuação política de orientação socialista.
O fim da Primeira Guerra assinala na América Latina e no mundo, um período de agitação da classe trabalhadora. Mariátegui, em 1919, funda o jornal “La Razón”. Neste mesmo ano, uma greve geral é reprimida com violência e prisões de líderes operários. Inicia-se no Peru uma década de populismo direitista – economicamente pró-ianque, mas que flerta também com parte do movimento indigenista.
A defesa de líderes operários presos, promovida por Mariátegui através de seu jornal, faria com que ele fosse aclamado em Lima por uma multidão. Um mês depois, seu periódico é fechado, e Mariátegui é discretamente deportado à Europa, sob o discurso oficial de “propagandista do Peru no estrangeiro” – um exílio “conciliador”, já que coincidentemente ele (de origem trabalhadora) era parente da mulher do presidente.
A Europa: uma mulher e algumas ideias
Mariátegui segue viagem, rompendo com suas primeiras experiências de literato “contaminado de decadentismo” (como depois expressaria em autocrítica). A partir de então, volta-se “resolutamente ao socialismo”. Passará três anos em viagem pela Europa, conhecendo alguns países do Leste e do Oeste, em especial a Itália – onde passa a residir.
Em meio à influência da conjuntura ali vivida – na qual ecoava alto a Revolução Russa – a Europa o aproxima das obras de Marx, Engels e Lênin, além do movimento comunista italiano e do surrealismo.
No Partido Bolchevique, Mariátegui enxerga a convergência entre teoria e prática, entre filosofia e ciência. Afirma ser Lênin “incontestavelmente” o revigorador “mais enérgico e fecundo do pensamento marxista” [5].
Durante esse período italiano, Mariátegui afirma ter se casado com “uma mulher e algumas ideias”. Sua companheira, Ana Chiappe, lhe transmite um “novo entusiasmo político” que o ajuda a superar seu juvenil decadentismo de fim de século [6].
A família de Ana é próxima à do filósofo Benedetto Croce, por meio de quem conhece a obra de Georges Sorel: sindicalista revolucionário de quem aprecia a ideia do “mito da greve geral”, bem como sua defesa ética da “violência revolucionária” contra a “violência instituída” [7].
Na convulsiva Itália, presencia ocupações de fábricas e congressos de trabalhadores, além de se aproximar do grupo da revista “Ordine Nuovo”, dentre o qual figurava Antonio Gramsci. Por este tempo, vivencia a criação do Partido Comunista da Itália, estreitando contato com o pensamento gramsciano e de outros marxistas italianos (como Terracini).
Fascismo: consequência da decrepitude social
A estadia europeia de Mariátegui foi também um mirante donde pôde observar o Oriente: desde a Revolução Chinesa e o despertar da Índia, aos movimentos árabes e diversos grupos resistentes do pós-Guerra. Nestes acontecimentos, percebe o declínio da envelhecida sociedade ocidental moderna.
Sua análise sobre a decrepitude moderno-ocidental ganha força quando observa de perto a ascensão fascista italiana. No fenômeno, logo identificaria uma resposta do grande capital a uma crise social e política profunda: a “crise da democracia”.
Note-se que, se no início de sua estada europeia, Mariátegui traz a humildade de um discípulo aberto ao centro do pensamento moderno, progressivamente ele passa a se decepcionar com os infortúnios que presencia na Europa, passando a assumir uma “perspectiva antropológica invertida” (de sujeito periférico que analisa criticamente a cultura eurocêntrica dominante).
Com tal olhar reverso, o marxista latino-americano logra captar detalhes da crise ocidental que eram, até então, negligenciados pelos próprios europeus. É o caso da decadência da dita “democracia burguesa”, que ele logo concebe como sendo uma nova farsa a se redesenhar com os traços autoritários do fascismo.
Para Mariátegui, o fascismo foi a solução encontrada pela ordem burguesa como reação à “crise da democracia”; ou de outro modo, uma adaptação estrutural diante dos novos tempos de imperialismo monopolista, em que a democracia-liberal com suas instituições parlamentares, já não servia aos interesses da burguesia [8].
Marxismo intuitivo: por uma crítica da impotência burguesa
Em paralelo a toda esta efervescência sociopolítica, Mariátegui tem na Europa acesso às obras de pensadores como Freud, Nietzsche, Unamuno. Interessa-se muito pela recém-criada psicanálise, bem como pela filosofia intuitiva do filósofo alemão – sobretudo no que tais análises ajudam a compreender a evidente irracionalidade humana. Nestes pensamentos ele encontra ferramentas críticas para a denúncia da alienação, da impotência e artificialidade do homem moderno: um ser castrado, inserido em uma repressiva estrutura sociocultural burguesa e cristã.
Entretanto, antes que os puristas do academicismo marxista o acusem: o marxismo de Mariátegui se manteve fiel aos princípios do materialismo-histórico; jamais flertou com nenhuma proposta de síntese eclética – mas se utilizou de alguns específicos conceitos psicológicos e filosófico-vitalistas como instrumental auxiliar em sua empreitada contra o reformismo e o determinismo mecanicista (ou seja, contra a mencionada fossilização acadêmica do marxismo).
É a partir da enorme tragédia da Europa que Mariátegui viria a compreender com nitidez o alcance histórico da tragédia da América. Quando retorna a Lima, em 1923, o ainda moço pensador já defende abertamente a causa comunista.
Yuri Martins-Fontes
[Continua…]
***
Notas (parte I)
[1] MARIÁTEGUI. J. C.; MARTINS-FONTES, Y. (org., trad. e introdução). Defesa do marxismo: polêmica revolucionária e outros escritos. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2011.
[2] Sobre o tema: MARTINS-FONTES, Y. Marx na América: a práxis de Caio Prado e Mariátegui. São Paulo: Alameda/Fapesp, 2018.
[3] IOKOI, Z., “A atualidade das proposições de Mariátegui, um revolucionário latino-americano”, em Projeto História (PUC-SP, 2005).
[4] MARIÁTEGUI. J. C. Sete ensaios de interpretação da realidade peruana. São Paulo: Expressão Popular/Clacso, 2008.
[5] Defesa do marxismo [idem].
[6] MARIÁTEGUI. “Apuntes autobiográficos”. Em La Vida Literaria, 1930, Buenos Aires.
[7] Marx na América [idem].
[8] “Crisis de la democracia”. Em La escena contemporánea y otros escritos (Obras completas/ tomo I). Lima: Editora Amauta, 1925.
There was a fascinating online panel discussion on Wednesday night on the Julian Assange case that I recommend everyone watch. The video is at the bottom of the page.
But from all the outstanding contributions, I want to highlight a very important point made by Yanis Varoufakis that has significance for understanding current events well beyond the Assange case.
Varoufakis is an academic who was savaged by the western political and media establishments when he served as Greece’s finance minister. Back in 2015 a popular leftwing Greek government was trying to oppose the imposition of severe loan conditions on Greece by European and international financial institutions that risked tipping the Greek economy into deeper bankruptcy and seemed chiefly intended to upend its socialist programme. The government Varoufakis served was effectively crushed into obedience through a campaign of economic intimidation by these institutions.
Varoufakis describes here the way that leftwing dissidents who challenge or disrupt western establishment narratives – whether it be himself, Assange or Jeremy Corbyn – end up not only being subjected to character assassination, as was always the case, but nowadays find themselves being manipulated into colluding in their own character assassination.
Here is a short transcript of Varoufakis’ much fuller comments – about 48 minutes in – highlighting his point about co-option:
“The establishment, the Deep State, call it whatever you want, the oligarchy, they’ve become much, much better at it [character assassination] than they used to be. Because back in the 1960s and 1970s, you know, they would accuse you of being a Communist. They would accuse me of being a Marxist. Well, I am a Marxist. I’m really not going to suffer that much if you accuse me of being a left-winger. I am a left-winger!
“Now what they do is something far worse. They accuse you of something that really hurts you. Calling somebody like us a racist, a bigot, an antisemite, a rapist. This is what really hurts because if anybody calls me a rapist today, right, even if it’s complete baloney, I feel as a feminist I have the need to give the woman, implied or involved somehow in this accusation, the opportunity to speak against me. Because that is what we left-wingers do.”
Varoufakis’ point is that when Assange was accused of being a rapist, as he was before the US made clear the real case against him – by trying to extradite him from the UK for exposing its war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan – he could not defend himself without alienating a significant constituency of his natural supporters, those on the left who identify as feminists. Which is exactly what happened.
Similarly, as Varoufakis notes from earlier conversations he had with Assange, the Wikileaks founder was in no position to properly defend himself against accusations that he colluded with Russia and Donald Trump to help Trump win the 2016 US presidential election against Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
At the time, Assange’s supporters were able to point out that the leaked emails were true and that they were in the public interest because they showed deep corruption in the Democratic party establishment. But those arguments were drowned out by a narrative confected by the US media and security establishments that Wikileaks’ publication of the emails was political interference because the emails had supposedly been hacked by Russia to sway the election result.
Because Assange was absolutely committed to the principle of non-disclosure of sources, he refused to defend himself in public by confirming that the emails had been leaked to him by a Democratic party insider, not the “Russians”. His silence allowed his vilification to go largely unchallenged. Having already been stripped of support from much of the feminist left, particularly in Europe, Assange now lost the support of a sizeable chunk of the left in the US too.
In these cases, the one who stands accused has to defend themselves with one hand tied behind their back. They cannot hit back without further antagonising a substantial section of their supporters, deepening divisions within the left’s ranks. The victim of this kind of character assassination is caught in the equivalent of reputational quicksand. The more they fight, the deeper they sink.
Which is, of course, exactly what happened to the UK’s former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn when he was accused of being a racist. If he or his supporters tried to challenge the claim that the party had become antisemitic overnight under his leadership – even if only by citing statistics that showed the party hadn’t – they were immediately denounced for supposed “antisemitism denial”, posited as the modern equivalent of Holocaust denial.
Notice Ken Loach, who was also on the panel, nodding in agreement as Varoufakis speaks. Because Loach, the noted leftwing, anti-racist film-maker who came to Corbyn’s defence against the confected media campaign smearing him as an antisemite, soon found himself similarly accused.
Jonathan Freedland, a senior columnist at the liberal Guardian, was among those using precisely the tactic described by Varoufakis. He tried to discredit Loach by accusing him of denying Jews the right to define their own experience of antisemitism.
Freedland sought to manipulate Loach’s anti-racist credentials against him. Either agree with us that Corbyn is an antisemite, and that most of his supporters are too, or you are a hypocrite, disowning your own anti-racist principles – and solely in the case of antisemitism. And that, QED, would prove you too are motivated by antisemitism.
Loach found himself with a terrible binary choice: either he must collude with Freedland and the corporate media in smearing Corbyn, a long-standing political ally, or else he would be forced to collude in his own smearing as an antisemite.
It’s a deeply ugly, deeply illiberal, deeply manipulative, deeply dishonest tactic. But it is also brilliantly effective. Which is why nowadays rightists and centrists use it at every opportunity. The left, given its principles, rarely resorts to this kind of deceit. Which means it can only bring a peashooter to a gun fight.
This is the left’s dilemma. It’s why we struggle to win the argument in a corporate media environment that not only denies us a hearing but also promotes the voices of those like Freedland trying to destroy us from the centre and those supposedly on the left like George Monbiot and Owen Jones who are too often destroying us from within.
As Varoufakis also says, the left needs urgently to go on the offensive.
We need to find ways to turn the tables on the war criminals who have been gaslighting us in demanding that Assange, who exposed their crimes, is the one who needs to be locked up.
We need to make clear that it is those who are so ready to smear anti-racists as antisemites – as Corbyn’s successor, Sir Keir Starmer, has done to swaths of Labour party members – who are the real racists.
And we need to unmask as war hawks those who accuse the anti-war left of serving as apologists for dictators when we try to stop western states conducting more illegal, resource-grab wars with such devastating results for local populations.
We must get much more sophisticated in our thinking and our strategies. There is no time to lose.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research
the Group of 20 – G20 (the leaders of the economically” strongest” nations). There are also some lesser entities, called the Bilderberg Society, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Chatham House and more.
hile respecting the (“green”) principles of the 17 SDGs.
Joe Biden and the Post-Corona “Great Reset”. The Protest Movement
